Felting to dye

Time is getting away from me!  

A couple months ago I made a rather special hat (which I fell in love with) from natural Finn wool which I dyed after felting.  I decided at the time to make more in this way..  and it's been an ongoing quest since then :)

A few weeks back I managed to felt..

A pair of new boots for ME :), and a hat

Next step before taking the plunge into the dye pot.. samples!

A rather sad, lonely dyepot.. abandoned in the rain

I've decided all my dyeing is going to be done outdoors now.. I hate having the fumes in the house!  All the worry over what fumes we are inhaling and what residues may get left behind (even though I turn into a cleaning demon after dyeing, I still worry that I may miss something).

So, I dug out the old, spare camp stove and cooked it on the deck.  All went well until the heavens opened.. at which point I gave up for the day :)

These are the 5 I've sampled so far..
there are 2 of each colour because I used 2 different natural colour combinations
for bases, so I could see which worked best for each dye colour.

I also have the lovely green I used before, and a rich raspberry which I can't find at the moment..

Next time.. progress to date with the boots.