OK, i know this might be really stupid, but could i take a piece of my mohair (which weighs like a feather) and drop it in my dyebaths as I'm dyeing my silk to compare colors and possibly start tracking mohair as well? 

Or if I wrapped a skein, could i do it all together? a skein of mohair  - does it have to be 5gs if i can put both of them in the same bath - or would i just add the grams of mohair to the silk?

thanks : )

 

mary

Comments

Sat, 04/16/2011 - 02:08

Karren K. Brito

you need to put the mohair in its own jar.

Different fibers have different attactions for the dyes.  Let's say you are dyeing a green made of turquoise and sun yellow and you put in both silk and mohair.  (I've seen this happen, but I'm making up the results for these two dyes and fibers)  Could be that the yellow binds very quickly to the silk then the mohair only sees the dye left in the dyebath, in this case richer in turquoise .  You end up with the silk yellower and the mohair bluer than they would have been if you dyed each one in its own jar.  It will only extrapolated to the same mixture of mohair and silk.

Bummer, eh! 

But an extra jar is pretty easy , it's making the skeins that is time consuming.  Could you just measure so many yards and drop it loose in the jar-- would it tangle, dye evenly?

Not a stupid question, I did it then asked why afterwards  :).