There might be some knitting going on here in Oman that needs the odd bit of colour.... I just might have picked up some of Chris Robertson's white hand spun from my Canberra stash....
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| The original hand spun |
I want a nice brown. I could spin the dark fleece that also came home with me or I could dye some of the white. I want it now! Time to dye!!!!!!!!!!!
What to use...what to use.... I know! To the kitchen!
1kg black (beluga) lentils covered with water and soaked overnight (all I have to do now is think what to do with many, many soaked black lentils.
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| The original amount was just a little mound in the steel bowl |
I strained the water from the lentils and placed it in a smallish
saucepan – there was less than a litre of liquid left and I wanted darkish wool.
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| The murky browny blurg |
I dampened the wool and placed it in the dye stuff, raised the temperature to boiling and simmered for 1 hour. Since there was not very much liquid I left the lid on the pot throughout this stage and made sure that the wool was covered. I also stirred it regularly and occasionally turned it over.
I left the wool in the pot to cool, then rinsed out the liquid and left it to dry.
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| Before and after. The photograph really doesn't do it justice |
The result is a gingery milk-chocolate colour that matches bits of the cat and apparently tastes quite good. Now to sort out the next culinary dye adventure.
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| It's Button coloured and will be kept out of her reach.... |
The next step is to learn to spin with an Omani drop spindle, although I've not seen them actually dropping them only sitting and using a short draw. Although this probably has more to do with the fact they're spinning goat and camel hair rather than wool. The lady in the centre has a spindle and is teasing out the fibres prior to spinning.
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From "fleece" to yarn to ropes
Three ladies at the Muscat Festival February 2013
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The spindle itself is made completely of wood and is top weighted. I've never played with a top weighted spindle before, so this should be interesting.......
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| An Omani spindle. Wish me luck! |
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