So to that end, I got more wool combed and spun, and even dyed with madder! I really like Liles' recipes. Here's how I accomplished his 'Madder red: Wool' recipe (pg. 126 from The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing)
2 oz dried madder, crushed with a hammer and ground dry. This steeped in 1 gallon filtered water 24 hours. Then the liquor was drained off (sort of a muddy terra cotta color at this point) and the rest of the stuff was blitzed in the blender. Madder is not toxic, btw! The 1.7oz of spun and plied wool was mordanted separately first in 2 gallons filtered water (very, very warm) with 2 Tbsp. alum dissolved in it. It only mordanted 6 hours and then aged for 2 days in a ziplock baggie. I rinsed it thoroughly before it went into the dyepot.
The rest of the madder went back into the dyepot with 1/2 tsp. chalk. I brought this to 180F over an hour and let it cool back down to 150F over the next hour and a half. Then I strained off the madder matter :) and stirred in 1 tsp. washing soda. This turned the liquor from red to bluish-scarlet almost automatically. I added a little citric acid to compensate (but this didn't seem to do anything). I didn't have any other acid (like tartaric or tannic) to try out. Maybe next time.
The skein of wool went into this (it was still fairly hot) and got heated on the lowest setting till it reached 190F, which took about an hour. At 160F the wool began noticeably taking up color. I turned it off at this point and will let it set overnight. Cross your fingers!
The first photo is with a flash, the second without a flash - the real color is somewhere in between.
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