Weekly Quote

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.---C. S. Lewis

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The Saddle Blanket Saga

My husband's Christmas was the stuff to make a hooked wool saddle blanket.  I follow the blog of Carol, Red Dirt In My Soul and she posted a link to a hooked wool saddle blanket tutorial at the blog of Linda, Just Another Day On The Prairie. Of course, I decided immediatley that I was going to do this; my hands are happiest when they are busy and this looked like something I could easily do while watching movies at night.  Most of the components for the blanket were readily available at my local Micheals but the wool roving was a different story. 

First I went to the website Linda recommended for wool roving which is located in Canada.  I picked out 4 lovely colors and got ready to purchase the wool only to be shocked by the shipping charges...$250!!!  Needless to say I went searching for a US vendor.  After looking at many internet sites, I decided to go to eBay.  On eBay I found the seller awayathome and purchased 8 pounds of undyed wool roving.

Next I researched dyeing wool.  Which lead me to Jenn, Wind Rose Fiber Studio, who had a tutorial for dyeing wool roving and she sells Jacquard Acid Dyes (and lovely dyed wool roving and yarn) on Etsy.  I ordered three colors and began the wait for everything to arrive.

That is the backstory.

Today I dyed 1.5 pounds, eight ounces of each of the colors; I was anxious to try dyeing and to see the colors on the roving.  While rather time consuming, the dyeing process was very straight forward (thanks, Jenn) and the colors are awesome.  Tomorrow I will post pictures of the process and the dyed roving.

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