Tea dyeing

I drink a lot of tea.

I recently fell in love with Mighty Leaf tea bags which come in lovely sewn silk bags. It seemed a shame to waste the pretty little satchels so I started saving them. After one month, I had enough to dye some yarn with the dried leaves!

I cut slits in the bags, dumped the leaves into water and brought it to a boil. I let it simmer for more than hour, turned it off and let it cool. While it was cooling, I soaked my fiber in alum, to help it set the dye.  I strained the water twice, so my fiber wouldn’t be full of tea leaves and added the fiber to the pot. I let the wool simmer in the dye for an hour, turned it off and let it cool completely.

When I removed the fiber, I put it in a strainer on top of the pot, so any remaining dye could drip back into the pot (which wasn’t exhausted). Some tea rinsed out the fiber, so I rinsed it a few times, until the water ran clear.

With the remaining dye, I dyed another 4 oz of wool, which turned out much lighter.

Tomorrow I’ll write about the spinning, but if you’d like to see the finished skein, you can read more about the yarn or purchase it here.