How felt is dyed in Nepal?

I use a lot of felt to make different felt accessories. Its very fun making different felt items. Recently i had a chance to visit one of the top felt wool dying center in Nepal. I am sharing you how felt wool is dyed in large scale through this post in Nepal.

Below is the raw sheep wool from New Zealand. In Nepal, wool comes mainly from New Zealand and Australia. It is a raw wool which needs a bunch of steps to make it soft and warm.

The very first step is carding. At first the wool is made clean and cut into pieces like in below picture and then processed in a carding machine. The machine will process the pieces of raw wools and outputs the continuous layer of wool making a roll as in the pictures below.

 

These are the natural wools roll. This is the basic wool which is then dyed into different colors. The colors are dyed in a very hot water. They heat the water in about 500 degree centigrade temperature. The hot water is collected in the boxes shown in below picture. They add desired color ink and an acid to make the color permanent in hot water and then the natural white wool is put inside the box and rotated in a very high speed for about 10-15 minutes. Then the wool is taken out and dried in natural sunlight. This way the wool is dyed in Nepal.