Today, I dyed some fabric for winingas. The fabric itself is 100% wool, and although it was red and white herringbone woven, it looked a little pink from afar.
I used a large galvanized steel tub, our canning stove, and 20 grams of oxblood acid dye from Dharma.
First, I wetted the fabric thoroughly, and filled the tub about half way with water from the hose (ie, cold water). Then I added the acid dye.
The idea is to dissolve the dye in some boiling water (we used about half a tea-kettle worth of water).
Then, I added the wet fabric to the dye bath and turned on the heat!
First, I used a paint stick to stir it.
I added vinegar as a fixative (citric acid also works and I know there’s some in the house, but I can’t find it).
This stick isn’t working out.
This stick is useless.
So I got a better stick! 
I stirred while it heated. bringing it up just warm enough to get the wool to take enough dye.
I pulled it out and wrung the dye out, and put it into the bucket you can see to the right.
I look pretty murdery.
The fabric was then washed in cold water on delicate using Synthropol soap.
THE RESULT:
The dyed fabric is on the left. A sample of the original is on the right. The fabric did pill a little, but it did not full- which is a major advantage when dying wool. This worked much better than when I tried this in the washing machine. I will most likely use the dyed fabric as winingas and use the original as a wool viking garment for someone (maybe me, maybe not me)!
Sibella Says 