The Dyepot finally gets some love

Sunday morning I awoke to the pitterpat of a torrential downpour gently lulling me out of my slumber. Cool, rainy weather means only one thing: time to stew up some dyes.

I pulled out my long-neglected dyepot and the acid dyes and begun to mix colors. Whatever my mood is tends to be reflected in the final product...and for whatever reason my mood was purple that day. I feel bruised, perhaps? Naw, more like hungry for plums and eggplants and grapes. Oh, and squash as well.

Here are my victims:



I went stash-diving and pulled out some boring white wool I had tucked away. 4 oz of BFL, 2 oz of a nice Falkland and 2 oz of kid mohair.

Mohair sucks up dye brilliantly. It has high luster and it absolutely begs to be something flashy.



I had a squash on the the countertop and a huge sugar pumkin from the food share that made do this. Now if I can only figure out what the pumpkin wants to be. Please, don't say pie. We don't need pie.

Another victim of the dyepot was a bag of white Icicle.



I had an 8oz bag that came along with my carder. It's a little sparkly but not too glitzy. It's made up out of nylon, but I was cautious with it- i was afraid that I might melt it into something toxic, or worse, uncardable, so I really kept the heat down. I applied dye and really had to press it to convince it to soak up the dye. Even after soaking it in the dye jar, i was still seeing a lot of white in the center. Nylon does not wick like wool does, and it is far from absorbent. Since this was going to be thrown on the carder eventually, I didn't take too much time worrying about it.

Here are the end results:



OH my MOHAIR. That is bright! And I'm very happy with the falkland and the bfl.

And here is the Icicle:


The purple I used on the Icicle was the same that I used on the BFL! Crazy, right? It's completely different on the nylon.

I still have a bunch of silk and some faux cashmere (don't ask. or go ahead and ask. I'll tell you about it later) and some more white wool that needs its turn in the dyepot, and also some lovely cashmere and angora and cashmere silk blends that need an extra special day in the dyepot when I'm feeling especially brave.

It's almost enough for me to wish for another rainy weekend.