Yellow Ocher

There’s always something in the works at our house!

When you can’t order what you want, make it yourself!

Sunday I decided to make my own yellow wool for chicks, ducks, and bumblebees. The process is pretty straight forward. Have 100 grams of wool. Take 6 cups of cold water plus 2 tablespoons of white vinegar and plunk it all in a pot. I actually used more water than 6 cups, but kept the same ratio going. Soak wool in the pot of water/vinegar for 30 min plus. Slowly start to heat the water to almost a simmer. You don’t want to get things boiling! Add your dye mixture that you prepared on the side. Make sure the color gets well distributed. Key thing to remember is that agitation equals felting, and we don’t want that!

Keep on the heat until all the dye is absorbed into the wool (the water should be virtually clear). This can take a while depending on temperature etc. I check things every 10 min.

Once done, cool, rinse with cold water and wash out with soap. Gently squeeze out excess water and lay out to dry. I use wire shelf racks over the tub.

I did two batches today using the same color but with different concentrations and states of wool. First was the higher concentration on uncarded wool. Second batch was roving I had created but used a lower concentration. The roving dyed unevenly, but might blend out well in the end. The first batch might go towards creating ducks? Or carded up for spinning. Probably not a good chick color! Time will tell.

It will take a few days for everything to dry. I’ll be shifting it around the house to take advantage of warm zones on Monday.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.