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I bought a felting kit

I felt bad about the wool I didn’t feel I could use for spinning, so I bought this kit, thinking it would be a good way to use the left-overs. I was right, but let me tell you, it requires patience of a type I haven’t mastered. I jabbed myself quite a few times, but I’m happy I didn’t need bandages.

Here is the result of my efforts.

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A little more about spindles...

I posted a kind of how-to-make guide a while back. I now want to get a little further into how big or thin to go with the wheels and shaft.

I buy wooden wheels that can be used to make wooden toys, like the cute wooden trains and cars. The larger the wheel, the longer your spindle will keep spinning. The larger the shaft- what you wind your yarn onto- the more yarn you can make and, well, wind on.

I now have spindles of various lengths and sizes. The one I use currently has a two-and-a-half diameter wheel, and needs a 3/16th (I think) diameter shaft. It’s also quite long. I can put just a small spin in it and it won’t stop until I stop it, or it’s rolling on the floor.

If you make a spindle that is small, it’s fine too. As you put yarn on the spindle, it’s going to add weight, which will increase the time it will keep spinning.

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Fresh Onion Skins

In a previous post, I used onion skins that were brown. I decided to try again using onion skins that were white, in a hope that I would achieve the goldenrod color.

Quite frankly, it looks just like my first attempt.

Sometimes I don’t understand the processes I’m trying to use.

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Black Bean Dye

For this, I used black beans, and soaked them a full 24 hours. It’s important to sort through the beans for small rocks, or broken beans, or even beans that are off-color. I used a cup of beans, and enough water to cover by a couple of inches.

Below are pictures of starting the soak, and when the 24 hours were up.

The water was very dark and murky, and ever so slightly thick after I drained the beans away. When I was doing research I couldn’t quite figure out whether or not to heat the wool, and I was scared to unbalance the pH (the blog I read said that they turned what should have been blue cream-colored by using a base, I think).

That being said, I let the wool soak in the bean-water another 24 hours. It didn’t smell very good. When the wool was finished, instead of being a blue color, it was grey.

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Next Project

My next dyeing project is going to take a day or so. I’m going to be using the soaking water for dried black beans to achieve- I hope- a lovely blue color. Pictures I’ve seen during research showed a lovely light blue. I’ll post when it’s all complete. One thing about this, though, is that unlike the other projects, like the onion skins, we can actually eat the material we get the dye from!

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Dyeing flop

I decided to try making a dye using- of all things- oak leaves.

What I’ve read about is using green leaves, and boiling them, so that’s what I did. I don’t know if there’s a specific time of year for this, maybe it’s new leaves, but the result was a brackish, rusty color that dyed a test-paper... rusty.

It also made the kitchen smell sour, sort of like when mustard greens are cooking, which I don’t find pleasant. The leaves themselves also turned color, from vibrant green to... again, cooked mustard greens color, which I’d say is a dark green with a little brown.

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Onion Dye, part 2

Now. I had some yarn (hand-spun) that I wasn’t completely satisfied with the color. I dyed it using food coloring, and it was lemon yellow. I decided I wanted less bright-yellow and more what I’d call warm goldenrod. I had leftover dye from Onion Dye part 1, so I decided to soak my lemon yarn and use the rest of my dye. Two birds out of the way. The original color after soaking.

I did add a Tbsp more vinegar to my dye. Thirty minutes of simmering and turning later for even color, and I’m satisfied about it.

There isn’t a huge change in the color, but I didn’t really want there to be.

This was kind of a point-to-be-made post. I saw a youtube video where a person wanted to make a Minecraft doll, and had this green yarn. They used what they called ‘spot dying’, where they took food coloring, and put one dot into the fabric while it was simmering in vinegar-laced water.

Point, you can re-dye your projects to get the color you were really hoping to get!

With some, like my first Onion Dye... it didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but I’m happy with it.

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Onion dye, part 1

The reason for the parts is that I did two separate dyeing jobs using onion dye.

Now, I used what are branded as yellow onions, and collected the outer, papery skin in a bag. In hindsight, leaving it on the counter was a bad idea, I now have a collection bag in the freezer, since my bag got black powder with the skins. And smelled. But I persisted, got rid of the worst of it, and boiled in a pot with enough water to cover.

The skins will float. The general practice is to bring to a boil (BTB), and reduce to a simmer (RTS), and simmer for 30-45 minutes. While this was happening, I had my yarn (hand-spun, this time) soaking. The water in the pot got gradually more and more deep, rich orange/red in color, and smelled faintly of homemade onion soup.

After 30 minutes, I drained my dye through a sieve into my drained and squeezed yarn, and then poured that carefully back into the pot, and added a Tbsp of vinegar. Return to simmer for 30 more minutes.

I started this with an idea that it would be a marigold color at the end.

At the end of 30 minutes, it was as dark as I had wanted my coffee experiment to be.

However, when it was cooled, washed and dried, it had become a red/brown color that reminds me of our local fawns. When we have fawns.

I have a couple theories why this turned out the way it did. One, maybe I need to look into finding ‘vintage’ onions. That is, onions at a small stand that don’t have the big growers behind them, forcing their name onto the onion.

Two, maybe I used skins that were just... two old. They had grown brown, not yellow, so at a guess, the air had gotten in and oxidized whatever is supposed to make a yellow color, making it brown or red. Maybe similar to how an apple turns brown after it’s been cut.

Like most of my experiments into these old methods of getting dye from what’s available, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. But I’m still happy with what I got.

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I have two more projects to share, but I’m going to space things out for the next two days.

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Making a Drop Spindle

First you need a dowel and a wooden wheel. BE SURE TO GET A WHEEL WITH A HOLE THAT MATCHES THE SIZE OF THE DOWEL!

This can be done by getting them at the same store if at all possible. Sizing can be done there.

I was cutting mine to length above. Next you carefully make a notch at one end- I didn’t put any weight on the saw for this, and ran the saw over two times all the way around. It should be fine if you do only one spot, I would think. After that, you make a notch in the wheel. I like mine just a bit on the big side, because I can use it for spinning yarn, not just thread (yarn is 2+ threads together). BE CAREFUL OF YOUR THUMB!

Again, I didn’t really use much weight, I wasn’t trying to saw it in half.

That’s really all the ‘difficult’ stuff that needs doing. After that, I fitted the wheel on, and did some sanding, rounding the top and bottom. I found that the best way to smooth the notches was to use a cheap nail file! It made the edges very smooth. That being done, I glued my wheel in place where I thought it was best, toward the notch.

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Been making a spelling error...

I’m very embarrassed to find this out, but instead of spelling ‘to color fabric’ dyeing, I’ve been saying ‘to die’. In future posts I’ll try to use this spelling, and I’ll try to go back and do corrections.

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Coffee Filters

As mentioned in my Coffee Experiment post, I used a coffee filter and a stapler to seal it. It’s important for you not to over-fill the filter. Not only do you have to seal it, but the filling- coffee grounds, tea- will expand. You don’t want it bursting. My filter was just right for a Tablespoon full of coffee.

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Coffee Experiment

This experiment turned out fairly well, though it didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted.

I wanted to make a color that matched the uniforms from Attack on Titan- cheap. I also wanted to find a semi-alternative for the spice-bags I mentioned in another post. I did succeed on that regard, but more on that later.

I used 100% wool yarn from a store, because I’m fairly sure what I’m expecting with it, and set that to soak while I prepared my dye.

I used a Tablespoon, a large coffee filter, some pre-ground coffee that is going to waste at my house because no one likes it for coffee, and a stapler (below)

I placed one Tbsp of coffee into the filter, and stabled it into a form similar to a tea bag.

I filled a small pot with water, and my improvised coffee bag into it, and set it to simmer, or until I had coffee, then set my yarn in with the bag. It looks like coffee ice cream. I also added a Tbsp of distilled vinegar.

I gently turned it over every few minutes so the color would be even, and simmered for thirty minutes. Ten minutes in, I decided I didn’t have enough water and added a half-cup, and half-way through I took the bag out. After a half-hour, I removed the pot from the heat.

The color of the yarn above was a little lighter than I wanted in total. When the pot was fully room temperature, I drained off the remaining coffee (I would highly suggest that it go down the drain, DO NOT DRINK), and washed gently using a small squirt of dish soap, and cold water.

Before and after.

It has to dry, so it is going to be a little lighter than the picture.

I have to admit, I went into this with a few theories, one of which was an idea about stains. What is a stain? I think it’s basically a spot of unwanted dye. And somewhere, I picked up the notion that the best time to get a stain out is while the spot is wet, and hot (best case). With that in mind, I did everything I could to set that stain, from soaking it a long time, to waiting until it was as cold as it could get on the counter. So I basically stained my yarn on purpose with coffee.

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Experiment Blogs

So- I would like for anyone who reads this to know that I’m learning too. Not everything I do turns out magnificently, and I want to share what turns out well- and what might not turn to my liking.

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Metal Vessels

On this subject, I feel it’s a bit clear-cut. Some pots you want to stay far, FAR away from, others you want to be on the look out for, and then there’s middle-ground. I’ll go from best to worst.

What I have been assured is THE BEST, the Holy Grail (if you will) of dye pot-ware, is copper. And that’s what it’s called. A Copper. The metal helps the dye stick to the fiber. If you have one, or if you find an old one that needs some TLC, there’s a very simply paste that can be made. I’ve used this to great effect, it made the pot I’ve come into possession of look newer in literally less than five minutes. I used equal parts all-purpose flour, vinegar, and table salt, waited a bit for the vinegar to soak into the flour to make a paste, rubbed it on, and scrubbed gently with a damp sponge.

Copper being expensive, I don’t know if putting pennies in the pot would work or not. If anyone tries this, let me know and I’ll update.

The next best pot is non-reactive to acid, which is stainless steel. I don’t really have anything to say on this metal, except I did have a pink ring from dying some yarn recently, but it went away with a soak in water and a scrub after.

My last, and ranked-least here, is aluminum. Here’s why. Acid reacts to aluminum, and it makes weird colors, and if you’re cooking, weird flavors. I’m not a chemist, and I’m trying not to get too technical. In short, it eats the pan, and makes bad colors.

I wouldn’t try to dye in plastic unless you’re like me and have way too many takeout containers, and even then, you would have to dye in batches that are way too small to really be worthwhile, in my opinion. Unless you segmented the yarn, keeping it in one strand, and did a rainbow yarn. Hm. More on this later.

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Dying Fabric

As I understand it, dying fabric can be done several ways. I myself have used Easter Egg dye successfully, and food coloring.

There are natural sources of dye that are easy to come by (or not-so-easy, depending on where you live, I guess), but I’ve not gotten around to experimenting at the time of writing this. However, this seems like a common-sense suggestion for me to make. If you are dying using natural materials, there are going to be small bits and pieces in the water. Which you don’t want to have to pick out of your fabric. There are small bags known as spice bags, which may be bought on the internet, or at a restaurant supply store. I highly recommend checking them out, because they make things SO much easier. And if you make your own soups, etc... well, you might want one designated for food, and another for dying as a precaution. Some things used to dye fabric might be toxic.

I’ve spoken with someone at a historical site who has used the natural methods of dying fabric, and he has told me that the success for dying depends on the fabric. Natural protein fibers, like wool, take dye more easily than plant fibers, like cotton. Linen- made from flax, I think- doesn’t take color, and that’s why if you see linen, it’s usually a cream or brown-ish color.

Another source, which I have used to success, says that for every cup of water, a Tbsp of vinegar. The acid bonds the color to the fabric. Some natural dyes, like walnut shells for a dark brown color, don’t need acid to keep the color in.

Of course, how much color you get depends on how long it stays in the water- and it has to be hot water. I simmer mine- but my source from the historical site has told me that it’s okay to boil. I can’t tell you how much color to use, because every dye job is unique. You might want pink, and only have red color on hand. You’re going to use fewer drops than if you want a vibrant crimson. I keep my fabric in the water as long as possible, until the water shows little color, and my fabric is a little darker than what I want. I give mine a bit of a wash after it cools to ‘pre-wash’, so no excess either washes out later or rubs off.

I have wound up with excess color in the water, and I’ve made lighter batches. Waste not, and all that.

Also, you are going to want to pre-soak your fabric for about an hour in just plain tap water. I’ve soaked mine up to a day ahead. It makes the color take to the fabric more evenly than just throwing in a dry bundle of cloth. If you’re wanting uneven color- and I understand that for some purposes, that’s desirable- then don’t soak. It’ll still turn out great.

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PLEASE ASK ME QUESTIONS!

I don’t usually do posts about what’s going on in my life, because I feel that it shouldn’t be put ‘in public’ for strangers.

But I wanted to share this interest of mine for like-minded people! :3

I am making my own yarn!

FAQs I feel I might get:

Do I use a wheel? No, I use a drop spindle, it’s cheaper to make.

What fibers do you use? I use wool, I got it by making an off-hand comment to someone who has a sheep.

What do you do to get the fiber ready? I use a couple of slicker-brushes, they’re much cheaper than getting carding tools and work just as good. I also have a little wire thing that gets stubborn fluff out.

Is it hard to use a drop spindle? This answer is a bit complicated for me. Until recently. The thing is, you’re supposed to keep the spindle spinning, and pull the fibers. Or that’s what I thought. Now I can be sitting and watching TV in my favorite chair, spinning my spindle, then parking the shaft between my legs so I can pull the fibers to the width I like. I can get an arm’s length (naturally), then keep tension so it doesn’t unwind by wrapping the thread around my arm and wrist, and winding it on my spindle’s shaft.

What can be done with the fibers you can’t use? Use it for stuffing for other projects, learn how to felt, throw it away, whatever.

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New Blog for spinning questions here! Check me out!