Solar Dyeing

Well my attempted contest on the blog seems to be failing, probably because only one faithful follower actually reads it. Well, I guess that is ok. After all, if it is kind of a morning pages thing, then I don’t really want anyone to read it. And the fact that I have made only 2 sales on etsy is ok too, since the idea was to have it there so people that saw me at a fair could find me on the internet. Maybe there will be more activity once I am at more fairs. Meanwhile, I will post about solar dyeing. But first I will talk about Mousie, who has gone on an overnight to a friend’s, and I feel like when the girls went on their first overnights… I hope he is ok. I hope she can figure out how to feed him ok. Hmmm. I guess I have gotten kind of attached to the little bugger.
        I’m feeling pretty dull and unsuccessful today. I suppose it will be better once school starts because I will have all that stuff to keep my brain occupied. I am enjoying reading Balzac, just the short novels. I will have to return the Chaucer since it is over due. I’m also enjoying listening to Dr. Ellis lecture about the American Revolution, and I hope to get it some solid spinning and listening today. And I have nearly finished the brown/purple wrist warmers.
    Now to something more interesting: SOLAR DYEING! And I cannot take credit for this, I hear about it from a workshop long ago at Nutmeg Spinners in CT. I wish I could remember the name of the woman who presented it, but I can’t.
Here’s what I have done:
 I bought a black bin at a hardware store. It is designed for collecting oil when changing oil in a car. I looked up bussing bins in restaurant supply stores, and they looked very nice (probably tougher), and not very expensive, but the shipping was a lot, so I went with local.
Next I got an old storm window out of the basement where  they all have sat since the new multipane windows were installed here before we bought the house. Any pane of glass the correct size would work fine. We happen to have these old storms.
I put water in the bin, added a big glug of vinegar and a small squirt of dish soap, swirled it together, and added the clean wool to that, to soak for a while (without the glass cover).  The wool was wet, but not completely covered by the liquid
I have a bunch of wool dye, most of which I got from Pro-Chem, some from other places. I took one, mixed it in a jar with very hot water (maybe ½ cup), then I poured that over the wool in the bin (still with its vinegar and soap). Some sections got really saturated with the dye, some had just a touch, some none at all. I did squish it around a little. 
Then I put the glass cover on, and left it in the hot hot sun. I think I left it for 2 days. It got pretty hot – but certainly not boiling. Maybe to 150 degrees or so. And at night it cooled down, but I didn’t worry about it. In the morning, after a couple days, when it was cool, I poured off the liquid (saved it in a bucket), rinsed the wool (put the rinse water in same bucket), and let it dry. I used the not-yet-exhausted dye water again by putting it back in the bin, adding more vinegar and soap, and adding more wool. This time I didn’t bother presoaking it. Back went the glass cover and I left that for a couple of days. Voila!
Now the wool in yesterday’s photo was another batch where I used red and yellow dye in the same way so it came out more variegated. I like the results!
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