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.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
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.
--
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.
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.
--
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.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Curly Dock
So, I've had curly dock (Rumex crispus) growing in my garden. Been meaning to pull it for a while, but then decided to check and see if it's something people have used to dye with. And the answer is yes, apparently they have.
Curly dock seems to be native to Eurasia and, according to illinoiswildflowers.info, was first observed in the US in the 18th century. Apparently, the young leaves can be eaten and are reportedly rich in vits C and A. (I make note of this for my friends who like to know such things. They like to know that for when the zombies attack or the world ends.)
I'm going to try to do two baths - one with the leaves, the other with the roots. If I'm ambitious enough, I may even try a dye bath using the inflorescence.
After having a look through the books, Wild Color said equal weight dye material and yarn for dock, regardless of if leaf or root. I'm going to stick with my normal 4 oz of wool that'll be mordanted with alum and CoT.
The leaves I gathered weighted about 6 oz. While I'm mordanting the wool, I'll go rinse off the roots and set them aside. Natural Color by Ira G. mentioned that the root color will still be good if the root dries, so that will be less of a concern.
Off to mordant some wool.
So far:
6oz of curly dock leaves were put into a crock pot with about 1 gal of filtered water. Set to "high".
So far:
6oz of curly dock leaves were put into a crock pot with about 1 gal of filtered water. Set to "high".
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Iris Root
Apparently, I'm very forgetful as of late.
I did this on June 9th, added in on 6/27:
Iris Root dye bath.
4 oz fisherman's wool
approx 12 oz iris germanica root (several days out of ground, spend overnight in a bucket of water, and then hacked up)
Wool was alumed and cot'ed. (2T, and 1.5tsp., respectively)
Roots were dug up, put in wheel barrow sort of contraption and left there until I could deal with them. Put then in a bucket, ran water over them, left them to sit for a few hours (had to have dinner and sit). Went out and removed leaves, soft spots, and chopped them up to about dice sized pieces (ish). Put in crock put, poured a little water over, swished around, drained dirty water. Put in more clean water, put crock pot on high and went inside.
Came back out every hour for about three hours to check, finally turned it off and went back inside, leaving the crock pot and dye bath juice to sit.
Prior to the dye bath being made: Soaked wool, added it to mordant bath, heated it for about two hours (was doing yard work that day), let it sit to cool. After... a day, I think, I rinsed the wool, and took it out to the dye bath.
Added it, heated it. It did actually reach a boiling. Turned it off and let it sit.
It's been that way since Tuesday. Instead of the grey-blue I was told to expect, I've gotten a yellow. Not quite what I was expecting, but maybe if I had dried the roots, it would have turned out differently. Plan on trying that again, as I have more irises that I need to dig up.
4 oz fisherman's wool
approx 12 oz iris germanica root (several days out of ground, spend overnight in a bucket of water, and then hacked up)
Wool was alumed and cot'ed. (2T, and 1.5tsp., respectively)
Roots were dug up, put in wheel barrow sort of contraption and left there until I could deal with them. Put then in a bucket, ran water over them, left them to sit for a few hours (had to have dinner and sit). Went out and removed leaves, soft spots, and chopped them up to about dice sized pieces (ish). Put in crock put, poured a little water over, swished around, drained dirty water. Put in more clean water, put crock pot on high and went inside.
Came back out every hour for about three hours to check, finally turned it off and went back inside, leaving the crock pot and dye bath juice to sit.
Prior to the dye bath being made: Soaked wool, added it to mordant bath, heated it for about two hours (was doing yard work that day), let it sit to cool. After... a day, I think, I rinsed the wool, and took it out to the dye bath.
Added it, heated it. It did actually reach a boiling. Turned it off and let it sit.
It's been that way since Tuesday. Instead of the grey-blue I was told to expect, I've gotten a yellow. Not quite what I was expecting, but maybe if I had dried the roots, it would have turned out differently. Plan on trying that again, as I have more irises that I need to dig up.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Iris Flowers experiment
Boiled Iris flowers to extract a dye bath. Transfered that to my crock pot. (I don't know how many I had. I think it was about 20 German Iris flowers). Mordanted approx. 4 oz of homespun wool with alum (2T) and cream of tartar (1.5 tsp.).
Put the wool into the dye bath and heated it up. This turned the liquid from purply to brown. Heated it for about 3 hours, and let it sit over night. And over night again. The color of the wool was a sickly yellow brown. Not very attractive.
I had a thought of adding more iris flowers (about another 20) and heating the flowers and wool together. I did that and let it sit for about 1.5 hours and then let it sit. (It would have been longer but there was this thing called work that I had to go to.) It sat over night. Removed from the dye bath and I let it drain for about a day. (Yes, truth be told, I removed it to drain, and then went to bed and had an early shift the next day so I forgot about it.)
The yarn had a very cool purple splotchy pattern going on, but that pretty much rinsed out. However, I think the fresh flowers added a nice greenish to the wool.
I did finally find something that said to mordant with tin crystals. Not quite up to dealing with that just yet.
If I have any flowers left, I might just try mordanting and then adding the wool to the bath with the flowers and heat it then. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Put the wool into the dye bath and heated it up. This turned the liquid from purply to brown. Heated it for about 3 hours, and let it sit over night. And over night again. The color of the wool was a sickly yellow brown. Not very attractive.
I had a thought of adding more iris flowers (about another 20) and heating the flowers and wool together. I did that and let it sit for about 1.5 hours and then let it sit. (It would have been longer but there was this thing called work that I had to go to.) It sat over night. Removed from the dye bath and I let it drain for about a day. (Yes, truth be told, I removed it to drain, and then went to bed and had an early shift the next day so I forgot about it.)
The yarn had a very cool purple splotchy pattern going on, but that pretty much rinsed out. However, I think the fresh flowers added a nice greenish to the wool.
I did finally find something that said to mordant with tin crystals. Not quite up to dealing with that just yet.
If I have any flowers left, I might just try mordanting and then adding the wool to the bath with the flowers and heat it then. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Walnut exhaust bath
I had some dye bath from the previous walnut dye experiment, so I thought I would try dyeing some wool that had been mordanted with alum and CoT.
Didn't turn out as well as I had expected. I expected lighter, but this was about 10-15% of the original color. I was expecting more.
I think I did about 2 oz, again mordanted with 1T alum and .75 tsp C.o. T. (If it's 4 oz, then the the alum and CoT would be double.)
Simmered, let cool and added to the dye bath, which was in a bucket outside the garage. Didn't know what to expect, so I just tried that. The color did not seem to be adhering. I rinsed it and rinsed out most of the color, so I put the dye bath and wool into the crock put, simmered, let cool, and left overnight.
It's a lot lighter than I was expecting, but I have a few more things to try just to see what the change would be.
And with that I will have to go stock up on more fisherman's wool.
Didn't turn out as well as I had expected. I expected lighter, but this was about 10-15% of the original color. I was expecting more.
I think I did about 2 oz, again mordanted with 1T alum and .75 tsp C.o. T. (If it's 4 oz, then the the alum and CoT would be double.)
Simmered, let cool and added to the dye bath, which was in a bucket outside the garage. Didn't know what to expect, so I just tried that. The color did not seem to be adhering. I rinsed it and rinsed out most of the color, so I put the dye bath and wool into the crock put, simmered, let cool, and left overnight.
It's a lot lighter than I was expecting, but I have a few more things to try just to see what the change would be.
And with that I will have to go stock up on more fisherman's wool.
Red Cabbage #2, Exhaust bath
I had plenty of bath left over from Red Cabbage #2, which produced a lovely light grey blue.
I figured I would try 2 oz. of wool. Mordanted in 1T alum and .75 tsp of Cream of Tartar.
Put the cooled wool into the dye bath and put the crock pot on high for some time. (Lost track of time, truth be told.) Pulled the wool out and let the dye bath drain off it for a few minutes. There was a hint of purple, but I didn't think that would stay. I left it in over night.
Next day, it was about the same. Added 2T ish of iodized salt (similar to what I did for the dye bath originally), and reheated it. Let it sit overnight again.
It came out a tanish brown. Not wholly unattractive, just not what I was expecting. I'm not sure what the salt is doing, but time to research and find out.
I figured I would try 2 oz. of wool. Mordanted in 1T alum and .75 tsp of Cream of Tartar.
Put the cooled wool into the dye bath and put the crock pot on high for some time. (Lost track of time, truth be told.) Pulled the wool out and let the dye bath drain off it for a few minutes. There was a hint of purple, but I didn't think that would stay. I left it in over night.
Next day, it was about the same. Added 2T ish of iodized salt (similar to what I did for the dye bath originally), and reheated it. Let it sit overnight again.
It came out a tanish brown. Not wholly unattractive, just not what I was expecting. I'm not sure what the salt is doing, but time to research and find out.
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