Has it been that long?

Hadn't meant to spend so much time away from dyeing, but I've learned to spin and love it. I've spent much of the past two years spinning, scouring, and processing fleeces.

However, I do want to get back to dyeing. So tonight, I'm about to mordant some wool and try out some sumac or annatto tomorrow.  I seem to be reading that people have better luck with annatto after they let it soak, which is something I was unaware of the first time I tried dyeing with it.

So, I'll do an overnight soak on the annatto seeds, and then try again.

Right now, I have 6.3 oz of Jacob wool mordanting in 3 T of alum with 2.25 t of COT. I was going to try something else with this wool, so I had it soaking in water overnight. I took it out this morning and wrapped it in a towel to keep it damp. Seemed a pity to dry it only to need to wet it again later...

Since I have 6.3 oz of wool, I've read that I should use half the wool weight of annatto. That's nice, as I don't think I bought that much. (woohoo...)

Tonight, I'll let the annatto soak, and possible Saturday, I'll dye. I'll try tomorrow, but don't know if it will work, time wise.

(I dyed, naturally? I dyed of natural causes? Yeah, I'll work on it.)

I also have 17ish oz of dorset to dye next. Right now, I'm giving it a quick wash (well, not so quick...) as there was still a bit of lanolin feel to it, which can effect how/if the dye attached to the yarn. We think that happened previously, so I'm about to go give it a rinse and think about mordanting it. Since we've done greens, blues, and browns, my friend asked for reds, yellows, and oranges this time around. We'll see what I can do. :) I'm thinking of doing 2/3rds of a skein with yarrow, and then going from the other end and dyeing 2/3rds in madder. I also plan on doing one of the skeins with annatto seeds, and another one with sumac. We'll see how these turn out! :)