My favorite way to dye top is first to soak soak soak in soapy water.
Maybe you need more soap (I use blue Dawn) or maybe you need more
soaking time. Then I squeeze out most of the water, carefully, it's
easy to felt the merino, and lay it out flat on a long piece of plastic
wrap and spray it with full strength vinegar, both sides, and smish it
in. You may not be using enough acid. I mix the dye pretty strong,
and apply it with syringes. I check the back of the top to see if it
got dye. I don't leave it too sloppy wet...mop up around the edges with
paper towels. Then I fold the plastic wrap in on the sides, and roll it
up. Then I steam it in a big double boiler thing I have, but you can
rig a rack in your dyepot. It's done when the plastic puffs up. I
usually do 4 or 5 rolls at a time. I've never had white areas, even
when I leave a little space between the colors...it always seems to fill in.
I have done what you describe in the microwave, but it's much more
serendipitous, I like the color balance to be a little more planned,
especially with 8 colors. Besides, the microwave just doesn't hold
much. Could also be that your pan is just too crowded for the dye to
get all the way down, or that it's just not getting hot enough in the
microwave.
Lynn C
Seattle
Holly wrote:
I've done multiple experiments trying to get good color on Merino top
without immersion dyeing, using the microwave instead, so that the top
will be minimally disturbed. The stuff I'm dyeing is lovely--easier
to spin after dyeing than before, even. But I can't get the dye to
penetrate to the bottom of the top in the pan. I've been
experimenting with 8 colors (rainbows--perfect for these snowy days :)
and 100 grams of fiber at one time.
I'm soaking it in acidulated water with a small squirt of detergent,
then using the same water to dilute my stock solutions. I've tried
using 40, 50, and 100 ml of water to carry the dye--I pour it on in
stripes, then 'mush' it in slightly--and I've used various methods of
arranging the fiber after soaking. The best penetration so far has
been to arrange the fiber in a single layer and leave most of the
soaking water in the pan with it, so the water comes up to about the
top of the fiber, then pour the dye in 100 ml amounts over top. But I
still had a LOT of white left behind.
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