This quantity of dye will easily
color 2 skeins of Lion Wool, 2 skeins of Lion Organic Cotton or
2 balls of Lion Cotton.
Ingredients:
1 oz ground turmeric
3 quarts water
Bring mixture to a boil in a stainless steel or enamel pot
and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will
reduce in volume some what while boiling. As soon as it is
finished cooking, you can use it.
- Bundle the yarn for dying into
a hank. It needs to be looped in such a way that
the dye will be able to circulate freely but also needs to
be secured so it does not tangle. If you do not do
this, you'll spend a lot of time untangling it when it is
wet. Bundling turned out to be particularly important
for wool yarn, which will felt together if allowed to move
during dying. Here is how we made the bundles:
- Wind the yarn into large loop. You can do this
on a swift or by wrapping it around the back of a chair
or by wrapping it around your forearm from your fingers,
under your elbow and back up again.
- Secure the wound yarn by tying it loosely in two
places with short pieces of yarn.
- If your pan is small, double the loop, twisting it
into a smaller circle and securing it with two more
short pieces of yarn.

- Bring the bath to a boil;
- Dampen the yarn by dipping it in water and wringing it out
well. This will help the dye spread smoothly through
the yarn.
- Place the yarn in the dye bath.
- Cook for 30 minutes. If the dye bath evaporates to a
point where the yarn is not covered with dye, add more
water.
- If you want to test your color, remove the yarn from the
bath and rinse it. If you like the color, great, if
not, put it back for more processing time.
- When the yarn is finished simmering, remove it from
the bath and rinse it in cool water until the water runs
clear. Do NOT throw out the dye bath until the yarn
has dried completely and you know you are happy with the
color. Note: When rinsing the yarn, use soap as well
as water. It is better to find out that your yarn is
not color-fast now than later when you've made it into
something.
- Wring out the yarn.
- Cut the second set of ties on the yarn, but leave the
first ones in so that the yarn is in a big loop.
- If you are dying wool yarn, put it back on the swift or
chair or whatever you used when winding it originally,
rewind it into a ball and then rewind it back into its
loop. This is because some of the strands may have
felted together slightly. The winding process will
unfelt anything that felted and we found it much easier to
unfelt the yarn when it was damp.
- In all cases, hang the yarn up to dry.
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| Lion Wool |
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| Lion Cotton |
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| Lion Organic Cotton |
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