While I wait for my wool cowl to dry so I can finish up Part 2 of my post on avocado dye, I decided to do a sort of Part 2.5 post about how I scoured the wool for dyeing.
Ideally, I should have scoured the yarn before I crocheted it, but I didn’t want to deal with the insanity of re-balling it from the heaping mess of a knot it would have inevitably become.
After running it under room temp water and thoroughly saturating it with some gentle organic dish soap, I put it in a pot, added a little more soap, and left it. Almost immediately, the water turned a cloudy color as the dirt and oil came off.
Something was so satisfying and grounding about feeling the oil from the wool on my hands as I crocheted. It was nice to feel a connection to the material in a way that you don’t really get with other fibers, except maybe raw cotton. In a similar way, it was just as satisfying to see the oil and dirt be washed away in the scouring bath, but also because it made me feel reassured that I was actually doing things right!
After letting the wool sit in the scouring bath over night, I rinsed it thoroughly, and let it sit while I measured out the mordant. I used alum as a premordant, and cream of tartar, which is used for animal fibers along with the mordant for reasons I have yet to learn. It is really important that you remember to weigh your goods before they get wet so you can calculate the right amount of mordant without being wasteful.
I like to use shot glasses for my measuring and whatnot because they are small, clean well, and are transparent. Using the ratios here, I found that my 3.1 oz of wool fiber (make sure you’re converting to grams if your scale reads in ounces!!) needs .25 oz of alum , and .22 oz of cream of tartar. The amount of water I found to be pretty arbitrary overall, but its good to mix the alum separately in a small amount of warm water first before adding it to the bath, so you can be sure that it is completely dissolved.
I was a little wary of putting wool in water that was already a little warm, so I made sure it was just warm enough to dissolve the powders, then let it set for a few minutes before adding the wool to soak overnight. Before dying it, I gave it a light rinse to as not to wash out the alum, and put it, still wet in to the dye bath.
See how this wool cowl turned out tomorrow, when I conclude my avocado dye foray.
Slow Kind 