Such Treasures

My dyes from Dharma Trading Company arrived yesterday. The roll of merino wool-lycra blend probably won’t be coming until next week or later, so I decided to try out the dye on one of the merino wool baselayer shirt I already made for Jeff.

I tried black first.

The garment has to simmer for 30 minutes in the dye-water-vinegar mixture.

Then after cooling it, rinsing it, and a hand wash-gentle spin cycle in my front loading washing machine, the now black shirt is laying to dry.

The white threads didn’t take to the dye. I like it that way, with the contrasting thread color. I think Jeff will, too. He usually likes me to use white coverstitching on black garments. The black dye does look uneven and I think it is because I didn’t constantly poke down the wool into the dye-water during the 30 minute simmer.

But those are minimal concerns; I’m really happy with the results. And economical, just like Dharma Trading claims –it cost us 37 cents to dye that shirt. That includes the shipping costs and is based on me purchasing a pound of the dye. I only used one-quarter of an ounce of that pound to dye the shirt, so there is plenty left for future garments.

In the future, I plan to do my dyeing before my cutting and sewing. That way I don’t have to worry about shrinkage from the heat of the dyeing process. If there was any shrinking today, it was minimal, thank goodness.

I am experimenting with the other color of dye that I purchased. I put uncut, unsewn leftover merino wool (about 1 pound of it) in to simmer with the olive green dye in the same manner.

The wool came out too much of an orange-y brown, so Naomi and I dyed it again, in a second dose of the olive brown. My thinking is that if it is darker, the brown will be richer instead of brighter (and therefore, less orange). It is cooling down right now. Then I’ll rinse it and put it in the washer on a hand wash cycle. I can tell that the brown is more pleasing, but it still seems orange-ish. I’m not sure if I’ll like it for the long-term.

With this brown wool, I am going to (practice) making beanie hats and ear warmer/headbands.