Dying Wool (in the mircowave, with food colouring)

Recently This Pin popped up on my Pinterest news feed and today I decided to try it out with some Merino Wool Roving (unspun wool) that I have for felting.

Pinterest Pin, screen capture

 I followed the instructions from the site linked in the pin. They were awesome - easy to follow and worked!

Wool Roving - unspun wool 

 I used this roving - bought at Baaad Anna's in Vancouuver -Hey there Baaad Anna's!

I wasn't totally sure if it would work since it's gray and not a pure white. But I thought I'd give it ago and see what happened. My current project is a little woodland fairy creature so if the colours turned out a little muddy (Earthy!) it really wouldn't be a problem.

Ready for the wool

 I wanted to make Red, Blue and Green. I used basic food colouring and close to 2 tablespoons of vinegar in the jars.

I wanted an orangy red - so I added a bit of yellow to the red.

Ready for the mircowave

 Using take out Chopsticks pressed the wool in to the dyed water. Right away it picked up the colour.

Then into the mircowave. I started at 2 minutes and then kept on adding a minute until the water boiled. (boiled over! Put your jars on a pie try or something similar in case of water boiling over)

The most helpful piece of instruction was to stop the cooking went the water went, mostly, clear. In my mircowave: 5 -6 minutes.

I left the wool in the jars for awhile to cool down. Once the water was cool it had also gone almost completely clear. Which is pretty cool.

Meanwhile my kitchen smelled like wet sheep and vinegar - kinda like a barn. Odd but kinda comforting.

Clear water: Done! 

Once the wool had completely cooled, I rinsed it off, (no dye came out and squeezed out the excess water. I am SO pleased with the result!

Finished Wool 

 Perfect! 

Since the first batch turned out so well I decided to make 3 more colours: Pink, Purple and Brown. 

For the pink I used a few drops of red, just to keep it lighter. I mixed red and blue for the purple and mixed yellow, blue, green and read for the brown. (I used A LOT of food colouring)

Batch 2 - pink, purple and brown - ready to be dyed

 I followed the same procedure and had the same awesome results.

In the end, the wool was dyed, but hadn't picked up all the colour, so with just a little bit of dye left I made two more colours. Which also turned out very pretty. (see end of post for all the colours) 

Pink in the back, brown bottom left, purple on the right.
Still a little dye left in the jar

Last two colours, very muted. 

All the colours hanging out to dry.
Pink, blue, red, green, purple, left over purple, brown, left over brown. 

Close up of purple and brown and their muted seconds