This month's entries:

Saturday, May 12

(I'm keeping this page in chronological order... because I like it that way.)

I was pretty intimidated by the whole thing with sulfuric acid. So, I had Margarete of Stick and Stone FiberArts mix the extract for me, using Liles' recipe. She used 3 oz of sulfuric acid (don't know the concentration for sure) and 1 oz. of powdered indigo. (Liles' recipe calls for 3 oz of indigo into 9oz of s. acid, but I don't think I'd use that much in a lifetime!)

Liles' dyeing recipe is this: Add 2-3 tsp of the above extract to 4-6 gallons of water, add wool (doesn't specify how much wool, interestingly...), bring temp up to simmer over 30 minutes and hold for another 10-15 minutes. Remove wool, cool and rinse. Repeat for deeper color.

Here's my photo log of the process:

This is how paranoid I am about the sulfuric acid. I rolled the bottle in two towels, stand the towels in a small bucket, and stand all that in another bucket. There is a lid on this all...

And this just justify all the paranoia. You can see the bottle and Margarete's label, and as soon as I saw the little bit of leakage on the towel, I went "uh oh...." I flicked one of those spots with a (well-gloved) finger, and you can see the hole in the towel where it just shattered. hmmm.

Here I am pouring in the concentrate with that same well-gloved hand... and interestingly enough, the pH meter reads a 6. (7 is neutral.)

Here's the obligatory shot of the infrared thermometer (I'm such a gear head...) and the first dip. I let the temp go to about 110F.

And here's the finished skein! wheee! not as scary a process as I thought, no detectible odor, and the water isn't as acidic as I thought it would be.

- R, 11:30 PM.

and my blogger http://twistedspinster.blogspot.com/ ...

and if all else fails, my Yahoo 360 ... http://360.yahoo.com/twistedspinster .

- R, 11:30 PM.