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Monday, June 2, 2008

Dying Angora Fiber

Today I brought out my stash of white angora and decided to dye it. After it's dyed, dried and separated by hand, I will then card it on my drum carder into one ounce batts. These batts will be offered for sale either here or in an Etsy store. I started an Etsy store months ago, but never did anything with it, but figure that with all this fiber I've been hording, now would be a GOOD time to add it to my shop;) Anyway, I thought I'd take pictures of my dyeing as it progresses so everyone can see the transformation from white fluffy fiber to a wet gunky mess and then into a nice fluffy, beautifully dyed fiber:)


First picture is of the white angora as it came off the rabbit. I clip with scissors and store the fiber in totes with a sachet of lavender until I either sell it for decide to use it for my own purposes:)

I forgot to take pictures of the wetted fiber in the dyepot (off to a GREAT start, aren't I? lol), but the following two pictures are of the fiber after it just came out of the dyepot. There are 4 ounces of each color....looks like a horrid mess at this point;)


The above fiber is layed out on screens over my spare bathtub to dry. After a day or so, I will start gently separating the fiber, thus, starting the "fluffing" process;) I'll post more pictures after it's dried a bit and I start hand separating it.
Aren't these colors fantastic?? I'm always thrilled with the way the angora takes on the dye. Right now I have another 8 ounces (in two batches) soaking that I will dye tomorrow. I think I'm going to do one batch of it brown and one batch turquoise. lol, I hate to be boring, but I'll probibly post pictures of those as they develope as well;)
More later:)
Lauren

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