Jenny Lind - Dyed in the kitchen and survived

[eunanhendron]

So I've wanted to tie this fly for a LONG time, but the scarcity of purple quills kinda hindered my progress.
This past weekend decided to give dyeing a go, and convince the wife to let me do it in the kitchen, since there really was no other way to get it done.

I had some old white duck quills that I picked up at the craft store for a buck, so I got to dyeing.
I used jacquard acid dye, lilac color, with the very scientific measurement of two finger taps on the jar to get the dye into the melting pot.
Just water at a near boil, the dye and then the quills, once I saw they had taken the dye, dropped in (again scientifically) a splash of vinegar and let them go for another few mins.

All told, the process took about 15 mins, including heating up the water and letting the quills dye up.

The result is this
Two nice lilac duck quills, ready for tying

And herrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeee'sssss Jenny (See what I did there??)

 

[turkey]

That dye job came out great and looks like your slips still married perfectly. Beautiful finished product. I've already been warned and I'm not even going to try dyeing in the house.

What hooks are those? Not 3399's right?

 

[eunanhendron]

hooks are Mustad classic 3123 size 7(!!!)


dyeing in the kitchen wasn't so bad on this small scale, but i bet if you were doing a whole skin or lots of loose/strung feathers, there would be more drips and more mess!

 

[lv2nymph]

Congrats on dying in the kitchen and not getting into trouble. The couple of times I've done it I drapped everything in plastic so as not to actually "die" in the kitchen, cause I was warned before I started. :lol: Color came out nice, so did the ties.

 

[lestrout]

Beauties! Love the shape of the classic hook, and the married wings and prominent hackle would make any brookie chomp on them.

tl
les