Things that I keep looking up

So, I keep looking up very mundane things over and over, so, I'm going to write them down:

Vinegar is a acid.
Ammonia is a base.
Baking soda is also a base.

For four ounces of wool this is the formula if I plan on using an alum/cream of tartar mordant:

4 oz of wool, mordanted with 2 T alum and 1.5 t of Cream of Tartar, simmered for about 35-40 minutes

...And the new kitten has escaped and fell into the wool washing tubs...

SO that's why I should record these things

So, with a lot going on, I'm trying to remember something I did before. It was some yarn that was spun and loaned to me to dye.

And in trying to recreate a color I did, I have no idea what I did.

And with that in mind, I'm going to be better about recording what I've done. (Especially since I've used some left over dye stuff and have no idea what it was, other than in my fridge for a very long time. Probably used for that project I mentioned above.)

Right now, I'm trying to remember if it was logwood or cochineal I used to dye.

I have been dying. Pokeweed, Queen Anne's Lace, and more. I've just been horrible at recording what I did, so now I have to do it over again, and make the same mistakes as well.

Not my favorite way to spend my time, but it's my own fault.

So, learn from me. Write things down.

No, you probably won't remember what you did...

Has it been that long?

Hadn't meant to spend so much time away from dyeing, but I've learned to spin and love it. I've spent much of the past two years spinning, scouring, and processing fleeces.

However, I do want to get back to dyeing. So tonight, I'm about to mordant some wool and try out some sumac or annatto tomorrow.  I seem to be reading that people have better luck with annatto after they let it soak, which is something I was unaware of the first time I tried dyeing with it.

So, I'll do an overnight soak on the annatto seeds, and then try again.

Right now, I have 6.3 oz of Jacob wool mordanting in 3 T of alum with 2.25 t of COT. I was going to try something else with this wool, so I had it soaking in water overnight. I took it out this morning and wrapped it in a towel to keep it damp. Seemed a pity to dry it only to need to wet it again later...

Since I have 6.3 oz of wool, I've read that I should use half the wool weight of annatto. That's nice, as I don't think I bought that much. (woohoo...)

Tonight, I'll let the annatto soak, and possible Saturday, I'll dye. I'll try tomorrow, but don't know if it will work, time wise.

(I dyed, naturally? I dyed of natural causes? Yeah, I'll work on it.)

I also have 17ish oz of dorset to dye next. Right now, I'm giving it a quick wash (well, not so quick...) as there was still a bit of lanolin feel to it, which can effect how/if the dye attached to the yarn. We think that happened previously, so I'm about to go give it a rinse and think about mordanting it. Since we've done greens, blues, and browns, my friend asked for reds, yellows, and oranges this time around. We'll see what I can do. :) I'm thinking of doing 2/3rds of a skein with yarrow, and then going from the other end and dyeing 2/3rds in madder. I also plan on doing one of the skeins with annatto seeds, and another one with sumac. We'll see how these turn out! :)

Birch bark

Okay, I didn't weight the birch bark before I soaked it. It's been soaking outside for the better part of the summer, which mean a good amount of it has evaporated. Especially because it was one of the driest summers on record. However, it has rained recently, which has added some of the water back.

Going to mordant four ounces of wool, but will probably only use two ounces for the dye.

Time to see what happens.

Hand spun wool, Tumeric, walnut

Haven't dyed anything in a while, but 12th Night is coming up this weekend, and I have some handspun wool that someone loaned me to dye. What a better present than actually giving it back, dyed?

The wool was given to Gypsy a while ago (it was someone's first attempt at sheering a sheep), and it sat in her garage for a while. Two summers ago, she pulled it out and we spent the better part of a day sorting and washing the wool. (Getting rid of the "too icky" or the "too coarse" or the "not useable" stuff, and then we put some fleece in nylon bags, and then put them into some soapy, almost hot water. Minor, very minor agitation. Drain, do again with a little less soap about two more times, until we used just hot water for the final bath/rise. Dried flat.)

Gypsy then proceeded to spin the wool to the weight she desired.

Last hank was then made into a hat. (Black eyed sue yarn) It's very cool to see a hat and know I had a part in it's creation. Not just making it, but the taking of raw material to useable, to a different color than it started. It's very cool to me. :)

She mentioned what type of sheep it was (began was a D I believe).

This hank is a little over 4 oz, but I think I'll stick with the 2T alum and a light 1.5t C.o.T.

I'm going to do that and then figure out the rest. (Like how I'm going to strain the walnut stuff which is outside, where it's really freaking cold.)

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Wool is mordanting. Time to figure out what I'm going to do.

Brown Eyes Susan

Okay, I haven't fully ID'ed the plant that I just dyed with. The common name is either black-eyed susans, or brown-eyed Susan, depending on which parent I'm talking to.  It's also right among some struggling purple coneflowers, and I don't remember if I planted yellow coneflowers there or not.  Regardless, it's either a Rudbeckia or and Echinacea, and we'll leave it at that for now.

I gathered the flowers way late at night, and gathered about 8 oz of flower heads. Plopped them into the trusty crock pot, poured water over it and let it go for about two hours on high.  I premordanted two mini skeins - one just about 2 oz, and one just a bit over 2 oz, so I was able to use my trusty formula of 2T alum to 1.5 tsp Cream of Tartar. I accidentally added more alum than I planned as I ran out of one jar and then found a second one, adding the stuff from the first jar and then about 1.5 T from the second. Techincally, I believe I added more than 2T. Such is life. The yarn doesn't seem worse the wear for it.


I added the wool to the simmering flowerheads, put the lid on and kept it on high for about 90 minutes. Went out, turned the crock pot off, and let everything sit.

Now, I was going into this expecting another yellows. Yellows seem to be a very common result.

I wasn't expecting a green, grey, browny color. I also expected the color to wash out, as has been my luck sometimes when getting a non-yellow color. No more than usual.

To further experiment, I took the second skein (unrinsed) and poured vinegar over half, and ammonia over the other half. The vinegar didn't do much, other than turn the vinegar purple. The ammonia greened up the yarn. Much more of a green-yellow, with very little of the grey cast.

An interesting experiment that I may have to do again.

Queen Anne's Lace

Okay, so I have a lot of Queen Anne's Lace growing in my yard. Last year, it embarrassed me; this year, it intrigued me.

I had read conflicting things about what part to use, so I went and cut about 9oz (maybe a little more) of flowers, with a tiny bit of stem. (Sepals attached as well.) To that I added tap water, and have been letting them sit for a while in the crock pot.  I have a three-ish oz hank of wool and a one-ish oz hank in the water, mordanting with 2T alum and 1.5 tsp C.o.T.

According to The Fold in Marengo, I should have finely chopped up the plant or put it in a blender. Instead I'm just going to leave it in the hot water for a while and see if that will extract enough color. Many of the sources said a 2:1 ratio of plant material to dry weight of goods. So, hopefully, I've done this correctly.

Why, one might ask, did I do a large skein and a smaller skein? I wanted to experiment with over dipping the dyed wool in amonia, so I thought a smaller skein would be nice to see the contrast. Both skeins are going through the mordanting and dye bath, so the colors should be relatively the same before the after-bath.

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Update:

I had the yarn in the hot dye bath for several hours, before turning it off and letting it sit overnight.  The color is a nice, bright, lemony butter yellow.  I rinsed the larger skeing, and the ammonia'd the smaller skein. Wasn't expecting anything too dramatic, but it did give it more of an orange tint, closer to tumeric in color.

Next year, I want to try an iron after bath. Rumor has it, that would give me more of a grey-green.