Osage, Madder and Merino

Recently, I started working on some handwashed Cormo and Merino fleeces from a local farm and dyed them with osage and madder. I also dyed up some Rambouillet roving that was a part of my fiber raffle winnings from Homestead Wool and Gift Farm in Wisconsin-thanks Sandy! The Rambouillet is dyed with osage orange and is drying on the deck on this overcast morning. I'm hoping it will dry a bright yellow as I have plans to overdye some, if not all, of this with indigo. I had a bit of an emergency with the dye pot as I think I overheated it a good deal. This was due to forgetfulness during the dinner/bath/bed rush. I was going to try to force myself to leave the fibers to soak in the dye bath for a longer period but I couldn't stand the wait, were they ok? Were they felted and destroyed? So far, it seems that there was little or no damage done. Hoorah! Now if the sun can manage to dry them up I can get to some carding and spinning tonight.



I like how this clump of madder dyed merino came out looking like fire with the very red tips. I also like how the grass is in focus and the wool is totally out of focus. This displays my mad photography skills. The tips really did come out redder than this picture-thanks again skillz!

The two bunches on the right are madder and the roving and other bunches are different concentrations of osage.