Green leaves picked September 11th. Dried some, frozen some, to dye on silk, cotton and a sample strip wool only. The rest dyed immediately. Test also early summer leaves 2014 as well as brown self-dried.
4:1 fresh, 2:1 dry – oak galls 2% if colour not strong.
Those are my notes in short form. 😉 What that means is, I’ve dyed some wool 4:1 ratio, with and without premordant, and same with an iron afterbath. Then I did it again with oak galls in there too. You don’t quite see it in the photo below, but the dark skeins are actually a deep, chocolate brown, and the ones with iron minus oak galls are greenish.
The oak galls don’t appear to do much to the oak colour itself, it works with the iron. Don’t leave your yarn in there too long unless you are aiming for black!!! Half an hour the old books say. First dye for an hour, add iron, simmer another half.
Technically people use oak to get grey, a wonderful smoky/silver shade. I got all sorts of brown and grey shades, but not that one!
So I’ve saved a few leaves in the freezer as well as dried some to test later. Perhaps the grey is more easily obtained on cotton?
cotton
Then I had a stroke of genious if I may say so. Especially since I had not bothered to actually check what other people do, I just followed the book. What if I did NOT dye the yarn first, but plunked it into the iron/oakgall/leaf bath when it was squeaky clean?!
But I’m kinda glad I did follow instructions first, or I would never have gotten all those other shades. Of course now I’m wondering what happens if you just use iron and oak galls…..
Oh – and if you rinse and rinse and the water still comes out black as night – make sure you don’t have a piece of oak gall trapped in your fiber. 😉
Egeblade
De gamle bøger siger: egeblade vægt 4:1 friske, 2:1 tørrede. 2% galæble for at få mørkere farve.
Så det prøvede jeg. Man skal passe på ikke at lade det ligge i gryden for længe efter tilsat jern, med mindre man går efter sort, en halv time er vist passende.
Galæblerne gjorde ikke rigtig noget ved selve farven, de virker først sammen med jern, her var der en tydelig forskel på de “grå” nuancer jeg fik. Måske de flotte sølvgrå jeg har set, har været på bomuld? Indtil det faldt mig ind at IKKE gøre som i bogen, nemlig farve i blade først, og så putte jern i til sidst. Og det virkede. Men jeg er da ret glad for, at jeg ikke checkede hvordan andre gør, for så havde jeg jo aldrig fået alle de fine brune!
Jeg farvede både ubejdset (det er det, de fleste bruger) samt alun- og kobberbejdset, her var også klar forskel, så man kan let skabe sig en gradueret skala til brug ved flerfarvearbejde.
Silk
Colour Cottage 
those greys are just gorgeous, I really like them very much. Definitely goes on my list to try, especially as I have 4 large oaks in my garden. The acorns are beginning to drop now so that’s on the list too.
Did you find the oak galls on your own oaks, or did you have to buy them separately? I have never noticed oak galls on mine, but I suppose they’re so large it’s a bit difficult to go and investigate.
LikeLike
I had to buy them, I really, really couldn’t see any, and I really, really strained my neck trying. 😉
LikeLike
well I am sort of glad you said that, because if you had said you found lots in your trees, I would have been obliged to go tree climbing tomorrow, checking out every branch… husband’s mountain climbing kit would have come very handy in that case.
LikeLike
If I’d found LOTS, I would have sent you some.
LikeLike
But since you only use 2% of the yarn weight, 100 g of galls go a long way.
LikeLike
Jeg ved godt jeg altid bare siger det samme, når du viser dit garn- ej, hvor er det lækkert !
🙂
LikeLike
😀
LikeLike
Pingback: Oak leaf dyeing | Colour Cottage