Just a few notes for future reference:
I needed winningas in a lichen purple shade. At Pennsic, I found light grey/dark grey herringbone twill leg wraps at Boots by Bohemond. A fellow customer strongly encouraged me to look into the silk dyes at Dharma Trading Company. That made sense, since silk and wool are both protein fibers.
Once home, the Dharma dyes and kits seemed a bit intimidating, and various people on the Internet seemed to have reasonable results with Rit dye. I decided to try that. Especially since I wanted a light color, it seemed like that might work okay.
I remembered to weigh the dry wool. At half a pound, I probably only needed 1/4 of the bottle of dye, but I used 1/2 so I could use more water and also to ensure some sort of color.
I purchased Orvus Paste to scour the wool. Two tablespoons in about 3 gallons of water hot from the tap. I gently pressed the wool into the water and let sit for an hour, then drained off the soapy water. I checked the water temperature by feel, did my best to match it from the tap, and let the wool soak for fifteen minutes or so in a rinse. (Sudden temperature shock will felt wet wool.) Checked temperature and drained again.
I added water of about the same temperature to the pot, plus the dye, plus about a cup of white vinegar (said to help set the dye on wool). I added the wet wool and placed the whole shebang on the stove set to low.
I wasn't sure what to do next. Most of the websites talked about constantly stirring the pot. But you generally don't want to agitate wet wool - it felts. I hesitantly stirred, very slowly, and mostly rotating the entire mass of wool rather than rearranging it. The color seemed very dark very quickly, but I also found that if I held the wool up, the dye-water would drain out of it, leaving a lighter color behind.
Worried about felting and seeing a fairly medium purple (and knowing that colors look darker when wet), I pulled the pot off the stove after only about 5-10 min or so. I rinsed in clear water (still trying to match temperature) until it ran mostly clear - I'd done five or six rinses and I was still getting some dye, and I decided to call it good. Husband has been warned that there might be some dye transfer if he gets these wet.
I hung them out on the porch to dry. Overall: Okay! Mostly even color, with one or two spots that are more pink than the surrounding, but it's subtle. It came out a medium lavenderish, which might be too dark for lichen purple, but I'm okay with it. The wool is maybe slightly fuzzier than when it went it, but it's not a long piece of felt, so I think that's okay too.
