Saturday, May 08, 2010

Another hand dyed warp

This is a warp for a shawl. The yarn is Aunt Lydia's Bamboo Crochet Thread that is a light fingering weight. The dyeing was deliberately uneven after the successful with the tencel scarf. I wound the warp in 2 groups hoping that with only 2 groups I could get patterning across the entire warp. I will find out for sure when I beam it but I know I got some patterning. This afternoon was sunny so I spread some poly navy fabric I inherited on the driveway and spread the warp out.

More info about how I dyed the warp:

After winding the warp I soaked in for a while in water, rung out most of the water and dumped it the standard soda ash/water solution for surface application of dyes. I then rung out most of the soda ash solution and lined up the 2 warp bouts. I laid them on the upside down lid for a plastic container zig/zagging the yarn 3 or 4 times so it all fit on the lid. I mixed the dye with warm water in a container and used a syringe from the farm store to apply the dye to the yarn. I put the dye on one side and then flipped it over to make sure both sides got enough dye. After the dye was all applied, I added a bit more liquid since I was aiming for low water immersion kind of patterning. After a bit I folded the warp up and put it in a smaller container I could put a lid on and move easily.

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