Washing Fleece

I've been busy washing a few fleece(s) lately.
Shetland, Blue Faced Leicester and a BFL X Romney.

To wash the fleece:
First I open up the fleece and shake as much loose chaff out as I can. Anything obviously too damaged to use (too matted or just too much vegetation) I remove.
I fill some large buckets or containers with cold water and let the fleece soak outside for a few hours or overnight to remove the suint and loose dirt. I drain on the grass or into the gardens.
I then prepare a bath for the fleece of very hot tap water (140F) and use Dawn dish washing detergent with a tiny bit of Zep orange based degreaser. This is my default method.
Usually two detergent soakings for 30 minutes work well. Some fleece need 3 washes.

I have a portable electric spinner I use for fleece and before going into the wash water, I spin the fleece.
Again after washing I spin the fleece before the rinses. I do 3 rinses; the last rinse with some vinegar in the water. I spin again.

The fleece is then laid out on screening to dry.

Variations in washing: I sometimes add a spoon of Synthrapol/ or TNA soap to the washwater. I also used some Orvus to see how that would work. Truly I didn't notice any marked difference.

It takes a great deal of time to wash a fleece. Soaking time, washing time, spinning out water time.

The end result is a lot of beautiful clean wool available for a variety of projects.

BFL

BFL X Romney

Shetland 1

Shetland 2

Shetland 3

Shetland 4

Shetland 5. The nicest. A beauty

Indigo X Dandelion to Myrobalan

May 19, 2014

Dye 338 gr BFL roving divided into 6 packages. Forgot to take undyed sample.

1.     Divide roving into 6 packs. Tied loosely with string. #1 will only be dandelion dye. #2-5 will be first dyed in indigo, left all day to set colour & then overdyed with dandelion. #6 will be the strongest indigo only dye. Finished indigo dyeing at 11:30 a.m. Roving aired all day.

2.     Dye Plan as outlined. Each dip will be for 15 min. then aerated for 15 min. (as close as possible).

a.     clear yellow #1. (dandelion flowers only). Prepare Monday; let sit overnight & strain. Add skein to vat after warming at 8:10am. Leave until indigo dye is finished.

b.     indigo, light. #2. Time in vat: 15 min. 

                                               i.     Start at 8:20 a.m.  #’s 2, 3. 4, 5 are going into vat together. Take out. Air for 15 min. #2 then finished & removed.

c.      indigo, mid. #3. In vat twice: 30 min. total.

                                               i.     9:02 #3,4, & 5 went back in vat. Added a little heat for 5 min. to keep it warm. Airing at 9:17 - #3 now removed.

d.     indigo, dark. #4.  Time in vat: 50 min. Added  5 ml more stock sol’n to vat.

                                               i.     Added 4 & 5 back to vat, but also added 5 ml more of stock sol’n. Timing for 20 minutes in vat. Out at 10:00 a.m.

e.     Indigo, dark #5. Total time in vat: 70 min. Added 5 ml more stock sol’n. 10:45 am taking this out. #5 is finished.

f.      indigo. #6. This one stays in constantly. Total time: 1 hr. 30 min. but aerating as with all the others.

                                               i.     Indigo only-do not put this in dandelion.

                                              ii.     #6 finished at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Undyed BFL. Tied. Labeled. Scoured. Mordanted.

1.     Monday. In a pail filled with very warm water add 2 tsp. TNA soap. Let BFL soak 35 min. 1:40. Drained Rinsed.

2.     Monday. Mordant fibre in new alum mordant to prepare for later over dye (27 gr. alum sulphate & 24 gr Cr. Of TT) for 1 hr. at 180 F. Rinse only.

3.     Monday. Gather fresh dandelion flowers and simmer to extract dye.

4.     Monday. Weight of dandelions: ¾ bag full. No weight available.

5.     Monday. Amt. of water:  2 gal.  (for dandelion vat).

6.     Monday & Tuesday. Simmered on induction burner for 95 min. at 195F. Sit overnight. Strained into pot and warmed to be ready for #1 BFL for dandelion only roving.

7.     Monday. Prepare indigo dye vat.

8.     Made indigo stock solution. Recipe from Jenny Dean’s blog. (www.jennydean.co.uk/wordpress/?p=3611)

9.     To make indigo STOCK solution: In a large mason jar, mix 50 gr indigo powder to a paste w. 4 T. very hot water. Add more water to jar, but leave room for fizzing. Then add 2 T. sodium hydroxide (aka lye, or caustic soda). (Dangerous chemical – be careful.) Stir gently, then add 2 T. thiourea dioxide. (Thiox or can use hydrosulfite, aka hydros.) Stir. Keep jar warm & set aside.  When it turns clear amber, it’s ready.

10. To make a vat: Fill a large stainless steel pot with water no hotter than 50C. Add 1 tsp. of thiox & 1 tsp. washing soda (sodium carbonate (also known as soda ash or soda crystals, Na₂CO₃,) and allow to stand for a few minutes. Very gently add 40 ml stock solution, according to the size of the vat and the depth of blue required. The vat can then be used as usual and more indigo stock solution can be added as necessary. I used a large syringe to add indigo stock.

11. 7:55pm Indigo dye stock sol’n mixed. Ready in 45-60 minutes. Letting it sit overnight. Will dye Tues. Gently warm by sitting jar in pail of warm water.

12. Tuesday 7:45 am. Prepared the indigo vat with 40 ml. indigo sol’n added to pot of warm water that has had 1 tsp. sodium carbonate & 1 tsp. thiox added. Placed on stove to warm to 50C or 122F.

13. Tuesday added fibre as outlined at top. Note that when I added 4 & 5, I added 5 ml more of stock sol’n.

#2

 

Indigo only. #'s 2,3,4 & 5.

 

#6 Only Indigo

 14. Tuesday strained dandelion vat for later over dye. Put vat on burner to warm & added only BFL #1 roving. In at 8:15 am. Removed at 5 p.m.

#1 in Dandelion vat

#1 Dandelion only

 15. Tuesday. Dandelion vat last for skeins #2, 3, 4, 5. 

Put roving ‘packs’ 2, 3, 4 & 5 into dandelion vat at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Heated to 180 for 1 ½ hr. Cooled and left to sit overnight & all day Wed. until I return from work when I will rinse, wash, rinse with vinegar rinse all roving packs.

After looking at the result of the dandelion overdye, I was disappointed. Although skein #1 was a lovely straw yellow, skeins 2-5 appeared to have changed very little if at all.

16. Save indigo dye vat for rejuvenating with stock sol’n in closed pail. Label clearly.

17. Thursday evening. I decided to do a myrobalan over dye using 30% extract powder to 338 gr WOF. 101 gr of myrobalan in pot of water.

a.     Added dye powder to some water. Mixed. Added rest of water and heated to 130F.

b.     Added my washed & rinsed fibre. Heated to 180F for 1 hr. Let sit overnight.

c.      Steeped all day in dye vat until I returned from work.

d.     Drained. Washed. Rinsed. Rinsed with vinegar.

Top Row: #6, #5, #4. Bottom Row: #1, #2, #3.

 Note the beautiful warm buttery yellow of the myrobalan. The 4 skeins do look a green of course. I tried very hard to dye the skeins evenly, but there are places in the 4 skeins that the indigo did not take evenly; the yellow bonded in those places. I will do a sample with all of the colours & post when ready.

Indigo X Myrobalan. Ready to spin having been drumcarded.

Walnut Dye

And today, the last of my three days off I boiled up some walnuts a friend had given me last fall. They had been sitting in plastic bags on my deck all winter and just the other day, a critter of some sort had nibbled into a bag. So without looking at them more than I had to, I loaded them into my dye pots & boiled for 1 and a half hours. It did look inky. The smell sort of reminded me of the smell of chocolate baking. Just 'sorta'. Otherwise it was bearable; not too bad.  

The fibre selected was 104 g BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) which I soaked in soapy water then did an iron mordant for 45 minutes at a simmer. Afterwards I washed & rinsed the fibre. The dyebath was prepared by now & I strained one pot for this to be a strong dyebath. I added the fibre & simmered for 1 hour. 

After removing the fibre from the dyebath, I placed the fibre into a container of very hot tap water to which I added 4 T. vinegar. I let it soak for 10 minutes. 

Fibre was then washed, rinsed, washed and rinsed several times until the water was fairly clear. After wuzzing, I spread it out to dry in a sunny & breezy spot.
Here's what it looks like drying.

BFL walnut dyed. Iron mordant. Vinegar rinse.

 Not quite as dark as I had hoped.

More Dyes of June 2112. Woad. Indigo.

 

And then the next day I used the plants from which I did an extraction the day before.

From extracted woad leaves. BFL top.