Dyeing Wool Mittens Wine Red

Red Woolen Mittens

I got a new pair of wool mittens for the winter at Fleet Farm.  I know I know-- I haven't been to any craft shows where I could buy the sweater mittens, and I'm tired of patching my old ones.  These wool mittens from Fleet are certainly serviceable, and will be warm with a thrummy lining (probably just a sock).  But I wasn't crazy about the neutral color, so ...  using what I know about using Procion dye on wool, I dyed them my favorite red wine color.

Woolen Mittens as purchased in a neutral color.

I let them soak overnight in a bucket of water with a drop of Dawn dish soap.  The Dawn helps in case there's any finish on the wool that might affect the take-up of the dye.  I knew the lining would not dye because it's acrylic.

In the morning, I mixed up a batch of dye concentrate:

1 tsp dye powder
1 cup warm water
Pour into a bottle with a tight-fitting lid and shake-shake-shake until dye is dissolved.

In the dye pot:
1-1/2 T salt
1/3 cup white vinegar
Enough water to submerge the mittens.
Heat to a low simmer.

Peering into the dye pot with wine red dye.

Add the dye concentrate. Add the pre-soaked, but wrung out wool mittens.
Let them simmer for about 1 hour.  It's amazing to see the dye bath exhaust like it does with the wool dye and food coloring.  I never see that with Procion on cotton.

Normally, you'd add soda ash to the mix with Procion dye, but this is damaging to protein fibers like silk and wool.  Instead, we add vinegar and heat to make the dye set.  I've had very good luck with this method, as explained on Dharma's website.

Let them cool, then rinse them out.  Let them dry, and be warm all winter!

Additional notes:
It took more than a week of letting these soak out excess dye.  I think that was due to the acrylic content of the liners.  In the end, I put them back on the stove and simmered them another 2 hours with water and a little vinegar in hopes of stabilizing the remaining dye.

These mittens also had a clumsy oversize shape, so I employed the ladders stitch to take them in a bit and round the tops off.  Now they look more normal!

 

Toasty and warm for winter dog walks!