Trying For Orange

I may not  know a lot but I think  I can recognize the colour orange when I see it.  I can demonstrate:

These pumpkins and gourds are orange:

Theses leaves  are orange.

So, I when I read that marigolds, when used as a dye, will invariably give a stunning shade of orange I eagerly planted a couple of rows.  Into the dye pot they went where they simmered until all the colour left them.  I put in some pre-mordanted wool and got a colour that was definitely not orange.

I don’t know what you would call this colour but I think it is reminiscent of  1970’s carpeting.   Thinking that I had made some odd and isolated mistake I tried again using flowers from the same plants but a different dye pot.  I got the exact same colour.   I have no idea what went wrong.    Variations in colour is one of the interesting things about natural dyes – you just never know what you are going to get- but I understood that marigolds were one of the more predictable dyes.  Oh well, more research is required.

 

Something Completely Different

When it comes to dyeing wool I am usually quite content to  work with natural dyes.  There are enough plants and colour variations to keep a person entertained for a lifetime.  However, every once in a while it’s a good idea to shake things up a bit so I gathered together some roving, beads and a package a raspberry  Kool-Aid:

I used the microwave and the spinning wheel and made this:

Certainly a deviation from my normal spinning and dyeing techniques.  I don’t know when blue became the official colour for raspberry flavour but it does make a nice dye.  I mixed the Kool-Aid with water and put it and the wet wool in a microwave safe dish.  I cooked it for two minutes on high, waited two minutes then cooked it for another two minutes, rinsed the wool and let it dry.  I then spun two singles.  I threaded the beads, about three hundred of them, on some sewing thread and  spun the thread with one of the singles spacing the beads randomly along the length of wool.  Finally I plied the single with the beads with the single without the beads and declared the project complete.  Approximately 100 meters of worsted weight wool with beads spun into it.  I don’t know what I will make with this.   Maybe a hat?

 

Onion Skin Dye

Last week I continued experimenting with natural dyes, this time using onion skins.

I used regular yellow onion skins that I had collected over time.  The natural coloured  wool was pre-mordanted, as usual, in cream of tartar and alum.  I was surprised by the colour.   I expected something  more yellow rather than this brown/gold colour.    These onions came from my uncle’s garden.  Somewhere along the line, without ever discussing it,  my uncle and I  have reached an agreement where he provides me with his onions, which are particularly sweet, and I provide him with maple syrup.   It works for us.

I think the next dye experiment will be with wild grape leaves  because the vines are growing like crazy  and interfering with the clothes line.  Not that the clothes line is much use right now with all the rain. Oh well.

 

Black Bean Dye

I’m back to dying wool this time using black beans.  The beauty of this method is that nothing is wasted.  I began by  soaking the beans overnight as if I were  to cook them. The next morning I drained the beans but  instead of throwing out the water they were soaked in,  I used it for a dye bath.  Since the wool and the beans never came in contact , the beans could  be cooked for eating.  I used my usual natural coloured Briggs and Little wool pre-mordanted in cream of tartar and alum.  I brought the dye bath to a simmer, added the wool and let it simmer for about one hour, then let it soak overnight. The result is a beautiful shade of blue:

I was very surprised by the colour since it is quite a departure from the  greens and yellows I usually get.  It doesn’t quite  have the vibrancy of a commercial dye but  if  I wanted a commercial dye I would use one.  The only problem with this dye method is that I am  left with a lot of perfectly edible black beans.  A lot of them.  Since I wanted a strong dye bath I used about a pound  of dried beans.  Throwing them out seemed an incredible waste so I dug out some cookbooks that I thought would have some recipes:

By my calculations, which I have never had reason to doubt,  I think I can make every recipe in these books. I hope they freeze well!

 

More Dyeing

I decided to try dyeing some wool with goldenrod. Unfortunately I had left it rather late in the season and most of the plants had turned brown. The goldenrod that did remain was covered with bees that were looking and acting quite frantic.

I know bees usually look quite frantic but there were so many of them and they were so frantic that I am feeling nervous. There have been busy bees everywhere lately. Perhaps the summer was too wet for them to gather pollen and they are trying to make up for lost time. Perhaps we’re in for a brutal winter. Anyway, there were bees all over the remaining goldenrod so I had to shoo them away to get to the flowers. I feel bad about that but look what I got:The wool was mordanted in alum. The skein on the left was done in the cast iron pot and the one on the right was done in a regular pot. The picture does not do justice to the colour, particularly the green which is an absolutely gorgeous khaki green. The two colours belong together and I have found a mitten pattern that will be perfect if I have enough wool. About 300 grams of plant material was used to make each dye bath. I suspect I would have got a more intense shade of yellow if I had a stronger dye bath but I could only use what was available. I am beginning to wonder if the time of year that the plant material is gathered makes a difference in the colour.

I also did some dyeing with the black walnuts I was given:On the left is the wool done in a regular pot and the wool on the right is done in the cast iron pot. Although the wool on the left is a very rich brown colour with red undertones, the one on the right is, quite frankly, a very dull tan colour. I expected a darker colour based on the dye bath which was quite dark, almost black. I had heard that black walnut makes such a permanent dye that a mordant isn’t necessary so I dyed some with an alum mordant and some without and, to my surprise, there was absolutely no difference in the colour. This will probably be the end of the natural dyes for this year since the weather is getting pretty cool and the plants are quickly descending into dormancy. However, there is always next year. I’m already thinking of some experiments I would like to try.

 

Further Adventures in Dyeing

My curiosity and interest in natural dyes continues. Looking around I saw that the sumac flowers were both numerous and bright so I thought I would try making a dye with them. Since my last experiment with stainless steel versus cast iron gave such dramatic results, I thought I would duplicate the experiment using sumac. By sumac I mean this plant:

I don’t know about anyone else, but frequently when people refer to a plant I have no idea what they are talking about so I have provided a picture. I put 650 grams of the flowers in a cast iron pot with twelve cups of water and did the same in a stainless steel pot. I boiled them for two hours then turned off the heat and let them steep for eleven hours. I had pre-mordanted some 100% natural coloured wool from Briggs & Little in alum and cream of tartar. I added about 750 meters to each dye bath and brought that to a simmer. I turned off the heat and let the wool sit in the dye bath for eight hours. I rinsed it, let it dry and got these results:

On the left is the wool dyed in the stainless steel pot and on the right is the wool dyed in the cast iron pot. I was secretly hoping to get some shade of pink simply because it is so elusive and although I was disappointed in that respect I was pleasantly surprised by what I did get, particularly the gray. I am having a hard time believing what a difference the type of pot can make. I can see getting different shades of the same colour, but I’m getting completely different colours.

 

A Science Experiment with Wool and Dye

I am fascinated by historic villages and take every opportunity to visit them so recently we went on our annual trip to Upper Canada Village.  I enjoyed a day of strolling through old buildings that I have been to many, many times but still enjoy. In one of the buildings this caught my eye:

These skeins of wool had been spun and dyed in the village. In fact, while we were visiting, an interpreter was preparing another dye bath. Behind the house, in a large cast iron pot over a fire, she was boiling some logwood . Eventually my brain kicked in and I thought ‘Hey, she’s using a cast iron pot. Iron. Isn’t iron used as a mordant? Couldn’t the pot change the colour of the dye bath?’ This sounded like a science experiment to me.

Since Mullein is quite plentiful right now and I had read somewhere that it could be used as a dye it seemed like the obvious choice for my plant material.

I put 300 grams of chopped plant material – stalks, leaves and flower – in a cast iron pot with 16 cups of water. I put another 300 grams from the same plants into a stainless steel pot with 16 cups of water. I brought both pots to a boil, let them simmer for about one hour then let them steep for two hours. I drained off the plant material and was left with two dye baths that were quite different from each other:

The dye bath on the left was from the stainless steel pot and the one on the right was from the cast iron pot. Next came the dying process. I took a skein of Briggs & Little 100% wool that I had pre-mordanted in Alum and Cream of Tartar and divided it in two. I put a skein in each dye bath, which remained in their respective pots, and brought them to a boil. I turned off the heat and let them sit in the dye bath for about eight hours. I rinsed and dried them and was left with this:

The pale green skein on the left was dyed in the cast iron pot and the pale yellow one on the right was done in stainless steel. Since, I wanted a deeper colour I repeated the entire process using 250 grams of plant material in each pot. I re-dyed the wool with this result:

The yellow is the stainless steel pot and the green is the cast iron pot. So there you have it. Two different colours produced by using different pots. Of course now I am wondering what would happen with a different plant material. Goldenrod is about to bloom.

 

Revenge is sweet – and yellow

We have a lot of stinging nettles around here. They are a nasty plant that blends in with other plants so I never notice them until I touch them. I really didn’t think they had any value and wouldn’t mind if I never saw them again until I found out they can be used as a natural dye. So, if I just chop them up and boil them, which I would really like to do, that is childish, vengeful and a waste of time. But if I chop them up, boil them and add a skein of wool then I am being creative and preserving a tradition from the past. So, I chopped some up, boiled them and added a skein of wool that I had pre-mordanted in alum:

Then, because this can be an oddly addictive hobby, I took some of that wool and used a vinegar modifier to change the shade a bit:

The skein on the left has been modified and the skein on the right is just stinging nettles. The wool began as a natural off-white. I prefer the yellow shade, I found the modifier toned down the colour a bit too much. The best part , of course, is that a patch of nettles has been eradicated which was the whole point.