After turning your wool into a skein, tie it roughly in a few places to secure. Use 1/4c – 1/2 c white vinegar and 1 litre water and immerse the wool in this.
From all I can tell 1/2 hour – 1 hour is fine and all you need, though lots of people will say
overnight.
After it has soaked in the vinegar mix, gently squeeze most of the liquid out but do not wring.
Protect your bench, I used an old towel and some newspapers.
Here is the FUN part. Paint your wool however you like with your chosen colours. If you are just doing one colour you could just immerse it in the dye, but if you are doing multi like me then this is the easiest.
Once you have the desired effect with your colouring, place the wool skein into a microwave safe container and cover loosely with gladwrap. Microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes. Remove from microwave and cool completely. Do not touch or move wool.
Microwave on HIGH for another 5 minutes. You may need to mist the wool with some water if it is looking too dry.
Remove gladwrap and let the wool cool completely again.
Once cooled completely rinse under tepid water until water runs clear.
Leave to dry flat somewhere until completely dry.
I continuously go to our local wool depot and are struck by the lack of bright and fun colours out there! I know not everyone is into BRIGHT like me, but I love it on my kids. Ages ago I heard about dying wool with Koolaid. Koolaid being the US version of our Raro, but WITHOUT the sugar. So mostly food colouring. I decided to give this process a shot, but
using the natural vege food colourings I have for use in cooking here. (I still want to know where they get blue vege dye from though?! Anyone know?)
Dying wool with vegetable dyes.
By Prue Fothergill (The Ecomoon Collective)
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