Wool dyeing

A few nights ago, Ryan and I spent the evening making our woolen color wheel and dyeing some rovings.


To get ready I broke up a roving of faulklands wool into about 3 inchlong bits and tied each one with a string to keep it as it's own little parcel.





Then I soaked them in hot water for almost 30 minutes. (I did not do this later with the merino roving and it didn't seem to absorb the dye as well, 40 minutes next time!)








Then we started playing with red, yellow, blue and black and came up with this color wheel!





Our rovings, oddly :), were not based on the color wheel but from some additional pots of dye. We did a roving of the faulkland and then two of merino. They didn't dye the same, and my guesses as to why not are because:
1. we didn't soak the merino in water long enough to ensure the fibres were truly wet
2. merino is an entirely different wool and absorbs dye differently

We're heading out to another farm tomorrow to pick up more wool :)