caracolina

I love indigo blue and the Mister found pre-reduced indigo for me to experiment with. The cool thing about this is that you don’t have to go through all kinds of chemical experiments to come up with your dye vat. The way John described it, it couldn’t be any easier: “The lady on the phone said, just put it into a bottle with water and pour it on the fiber!” I couldn’t believe it, what about presoaking, mordants, how to fixate, there was nothing else to do? So I spoke to the resident expert at Table Rock Llamas, our fine source of pre-reduced indigo who pretty much confirmed that it is ridiculously easy to use. Soak the fiber in water, use about 1/4 tsp of indigo per 8oz of tap water in a squeeze bottle and paint away. Steam the fiber for 1 hour to set the color.

I used about 4 oz of superwash merino and once I got started pouring on the dye it was so much fun that I ended up overdoing things a bit with a second bottle of dye, but that is what experimenting is all about, right? The experiment continued since I don’t have a steamer thingy to put into my pot, so I decided to try microwaving. I microwaved the rolled up top 15 minutes, let it cool a bit, turned it over, and then microwaved for another 15 minutes. No idea if this killed the fiber or what, but only trying to spin will tell. I let the fiber cool off outside and then rinsed by soaking for 15 minutes, then squeezing out the water. I must have rinsed a dozen times before I gave up! I probably did use too dye… I love the blue color of the fiber although I really had wanted more a more variegated look. Next time I’ll just stick with one 8oz bottle! I also hope that the top didn’t get too matted on the outside from all the squeezing (I really tried not to agitate the fiber in the water, but what can I do). I plan on spinning this as a single and then plying with the kool-aid dyed top I did last weekend. Oh, and I’m going to get me an old salad spinner to squeeze out extra water when rinsing.