You will have the best results if your fiber is clean before dyeing. Many skeins of yarn only require a pre-soak in warm water to thoroughly wet and lightly rinse the fiber.

Lanolin will block your fiber from receiving the dye. Your results from dyeing fiber with lanolin might appear faded or pastel since a significant portion of the dye will end up washing down the drain during your final rinse. If you are dyeing unprocessed fleece or even roving or yarn with residual lanolin, it will improve your results to remove as much lanolin as possible before dyeing.

There is no mordant required. Acid dye will chemically bond to your fiber with appropriate heat and mildly acidic pH. We achieve the correct pH with the help of pre-measured citric acid.

We recommend using one dye tea bag for every 3.5 oz. (100g) of fiber in order to achieve our published color saturations.

You can easily adjust the saturation in your own project by adjusting the weight of fiber used per tea bag.

For example, if you were to use one tea bag with 5 oz. (~140g) of fiber, you can expect a lighter shade of our published color. On the other hand, if you were to use one dye tea bag with 2 oz. (~60g), then you can expect a stronger saturation of our published color. In this case, there is also the potential for excess dye to be left over in the water.

Either way, the dye will successfully bond to the fiber. You'll just get a different strength of color when you change the weight of fiber.

Larger projects usually have weights that do not fall neatly into the ounces or grams required. Simply round up or down to your closest number of tea bags based on whether you prefer the saturation to be a little more or a little less.

You do not need a precise volume of water. We recommend using enough water for your fiber to swim freely without becoming cramped. The water serves to carry the dye into the fiber, so the more freely your fiber can move around, the more even your dye color will be in the end.

You can use less water to intentionally create 'resists', dry portions of your fiber that will not take color. This often results in varying saturations as well. Your finished piece might look similar to tie-dye.

The dye process is complete when there is little to no color left in the water.

Each unique color bonds to the fiber at a different rate. Some require only a couple of minutes, while others may take up to 30 minutes or longer.

It does no harm to leave your dye bath to soak longer than the time it takes for the color to strike, even overnight.

It is a good idea to leave your dye bath alone until it is cool to the touch. This way, you won't burn yourself draining off the hot water. If you wait until your dye bath cools, the dye processes will definitely be complete.

Every tea bag is measured with precision.

We are meticulous about matching color batch to batch as best we can, and we expect you to experience consistent, predictable color with each tea bag.

Having said that, subtle variations can occur between batches and are a natural expectation in hand-dyed work.

You might also be interested to know that we conducted an in-house experiment to test consistency: we dyed four skeins together in a large pot and another four one at a time using our dye jar. Across the ten colors tested this way, the skeins dyed individually showed remarkable consistency and had less variation than those dyed in a large pot. We attribute this to our precision in weighing each tea bag and the ease of repeating the dye process consistently with a dye jar.

There are two common reasons for uneven color results: water temperature and resists.

If your water cools before the dye particles have had enough time to bond to your fiber, you may be left with excess dye in the water and possibly uneven color on your fiber. Possible reasons for your water cooling too fast are that it wasn't hot enough to begin with, or that you were using a vessel (like a metal bowl, plastic bucket, or similar) that doesn’t retain heat as well as a glass jar. Alternative vessels benefit from some form of insulation to help retain heat. Ideas for insulating alternative dye vessels might be wrapping it in old towels, putting some kind of lid on it, or keeping it inside a cooler chest.

A stainless steel pot on the stove works well as long as you monitor the temperature of the water and apply (or remove) heat as needed through the dye process.

The other common reason for achieving uneven dye results is the presence of resists. Resists are places in your fiber where the water and dye cannot travel freely. Felted fibers are susceptible to resisting. If you are dyeing a larger piece like a sweater, especially if it is a pre-loved sweater, it is almost certain there will be subtle resists near the seams, underarm, or neckline.

We do not recommend reusing a dye bath.

Technically, if there is enough dye remaining in the water, and you reheat it to the appropriate temperature, and return it to the proper pH, then yes, you could dye more fiber with the reused dye bath. Achieving ideal conditions with a leftover dye bath is unpredictable. Reheating the bath might also pose a challenge. Therefore, we do not recommend it.

Yes. You can overdye yarn that already has color using the same process as with undyed yarn. The only difference is that the resulting color will be a combination of your original color and the new overdye color.

All of our colors can be used for overdyeing, but popular choices include Shade, Midnight, Stellar's Jay, and Strawberry.

Keep in mind a few basic rules:

• Heavy saturation masks light saturation, and dark colors will hide the most.
• Complementary colors make Brown (Red+Yellow+Blue, Orange+Blue, Green+Red, and Purlple+Yellow)

In most cases, a gentle rinse with warm water is sufficient. The dye will be permanently bonded to your fiber when you take it out of the dye bath, so it will not bleed. Rinsing your fiber allows any excess dye to wash away. Soap is not required for this step.

Wool Tincture Dyes are strongly colorfast. Once the dye process is complete, the color is permanently bonded to your fiber, and will not bleed or fade.

Hand wash cold, lay flat to dry.

Most retail orders ship within 2 business days from our Tennessee studio.

International shipping is available to Canada only.

Please be aware that international orders may require payment of import taxes upon receipt and the cost of shipping does not cover these fees.

We want you to be 100% satisfied with your purchase and making things right is easier than you think. If a product doesn't meet your expectations for any reason we will gladly extend hassle-free returns, exchanges, or refunds, at no cost to you.