Dyeing experiment #2 Low immersion and nepps.

Off the back of what I think was a highly successful foray into dyeing my own wool to spin, I decided to do some more!

In the jars above are some wool nepps that I am thinking about adding to the green I dyed last week to make a tweedy mix. The tray is an experiment in 'low immersion' dyeing with a couple of pieces of roving because I read that it MAY give me more control over where the colour goes without resorting to hand painting it. I brought it up to temperature and started pouring colours over it so that they pooled a bit.

Once dry, two days later (..where is the summer?), I ended up with.. unicorn poop, according to my children (so well bred). I think they are pretty! The top one is 100% Falkland wool and the other is Blue Faced Leicester wool blended with seacell. The seacell doesn't take the dye so its a silky white stripe running through the whole top. I am loving this whole process to be honest, it's lots easier than I thought it would be, I have surprised myself.

The nepps were steam treated in little jars til they absorbed these shockingly bright colours and after they were dry I added them to rolags made from some of the green I dyed last week. The rolags meant that the green colour came out quite heathered which is an interesting technique that I will use again.

They made for an interesting spin. However, the nepps really did end up EVERYWHERE and the yarn is still shedding them - lol. I still have a good 80g of the green left which I intend to spin as it is to make more of a feature of the colour changes.

I am toying with the idea of getting some yarn and dyeing it in a nice colour to give as a gift.