Braid Dying

Today we're going to go back in time a bit and go over how I dyed that yellow alpaca that did so well at the fair.

I figured it was only 3.5 ounces, so if there was ever a good time to experiment with alpaca this was it. I was going for a variegated yellow-orange fiber. I knew I wanted the whole thing to be on a base of yellow, so I just threw the braid into my crock pot and then added the dye.

It probably would have helped quite a bit if I had soaked it first, but it came out basically orange on the surface.
I washed it, let it dry- while still in the braid. After it was dried I pulled out the braid and decided that there was more white than I wanted. So I braided it again, which left different sections exposed, as you can see below.

It went back into the crock pot, washed, dried, and spun into this!

 

It didn't end up quite as variegated as I had hoped originally, but there is still some white and a bit of orange in there too. It probably won't become a standard method for dying, but it was fun to try.