Frozen flower dye

Tags

dye storage, flowers, natural dyeing, seasons, wool, yarn

Last year weeds happened to my orange cosmos (it always starts growing very late for some reason – then blooms into October where it’s too wet to collect seeds properly), this year slugs have overrun our entire property, so I had one plant. For that reason I had a handful of flowers in the freezer from last year and collected all summer from my one little very brave specimen to get enough for a reasonable amount of wool.

The yarn that wouldn’t

Tags

brown, colour, mordant, natural dyeing, overdye, wool

As I mentioned in passing yesterday, I had some non-results with dried walnut on one of my overdye projects. I can’t remember what came first, I think possibly alum and St. John’s Wort solar dye method (= mucky fawn).

Then I tried dried walnut shells, bought in a store, not collected, regrettably. (=beige) Ammonia: no change. Yes, it really lost colour compared to the original.

Another option would be mixing my used dye jars of hollyhock, cochineal and safflower on the odd chance they were not exhausted from the other hanks I showed yesterday. (=this added a slight greyish tint to the beige)

Dumping the science projects

Tags

colour, colourways, natural dyeing, wool

For a while I’ve been recording facts about each yarn I’ve plant dyed, I’ve made solar and indirect light exposure tests (more about that when I have the energy to make a list), the pH values, the modifiers.

Well, I felt it was time to lose that for a while.

Late dye harvest

Tags

autumn, blue, dorset, garden, green, natural dyeing, seasons, suffolk, vaid, vau, weld, woad, wool, yellow

Eager to try drum carding my Dorset fleeces (with a bit of Suffolk mixed in, they had not been separated) I decided last weekend to make a final raid on the dye garden to make it more fun than just white (I do still have a bag of white from last year of what I think is Suffolk). I know I said I was done, but I got two more fleeces, didn’t I. Same sheep – this time I only kept the best bit, perhaps a third of what I was given rather than 2 thirds. I haven’t weighed it though.

And it turned out both the weld and the woad were still fine to use, green and fresh. I had dried some bundles of tansy hanging them from the stable ceiling – and left them there, so they are now covered in “dust” – mold spores. I decided to boil one bundle anyway and put some fleece in. Giving out colour just fine, but I’m chucking the other three bundles.

The last batch went in with some onion skins that were sitting on the kitchen counter anyway and a few cochineal sprinkles on one side, which oddly enough didn’t do much besides turn the water red.

I used rather a lot of fleece in the woad vat, so apart from the green that didn’t turn out too interesting. But I can always dye the yarn again, or, if we don’t have any frost, go look for more plants in a few weeks.

Earlier this year I handcarded the part of the fleeces that I had acid dyed, and it took me FOREVER. My test bat on the drum carder last week took no time at all, no effort, no tired hands – so I’m very optimistic I can get spinnable fiber relatively easy. I’ll first card each shade on its own to straighten it out a bit, then I may blend.

Sen farvehøst

Jeg har jo længe gerne ville karte alle mine gratishamme, som jeg har plantefarvet gennem de sidste par år i bundter, både fordi de fylder ret meget og fordi det er en stor opgave når de er så fyldt med fnidder og knuder. Og så sagde jeg ja til to hamme mere i år, dog blev de sorteret med ret kræsen hånd.

Det sidste uld ville jeg også lige have farvet, så det er lidt sjovere at arbejde med, så en tur i haven og hente både vaid og vau, som står fine, friske og grønne endnu. Jeg havde hængt bundter af rejnfan under staldloftet til tørring – og derefter ladet dem hænge så de nu i det fugtige vejr er blevet helt dækket af et fint lag støv, eller rettere mugsporer. Jeg proppede det ende bundt i en gryde, og det farver fint, men de andre ryger ud. Og en bunke uld røg i en gryde med gårsdagens løgskaller.

Jeg fik proppet lige lidt rigeligt i gryden med vaid, så bortset fra de grønne nuancer blev det lidt kedeligt – men enten kan jeg jo overfarve garnet eller også venter jeg med at karte den bunke og ser om det evt. holder frostfrit en måneds tid endnu og måske jeg kan finde flere planter? Ellers har jeg faktisk en spandfuld blå farve stående fra sidst.

Tidligere på året håndkartede jeg jo den del af hammene som jeg havde pulverfarvet, og det tog en evighed. Men det testbat jeg kartede på maskine sidste uge gik som en leg, så håber på jeg kan få de her kødfår i hæderlig stand rimelig nemt og hurtigt. Jeg tror jeg først karter hver nuance for sig og så kan jeg blande i anden omgang.

Purple or blue?

Tags

natural dyeing, purple, wool

I needed a bit of blue to conclude my goldenrod chapter as well as testing if Dylon Color Run Remover works the same as our local brand which was more expensive.

My Japanese indigo is still growing new leaves and left me with a harvest of 90 g leaves to 40 g of yarn including half the rose coloured cochineal hank from Friday and samples from the other two, so I thought I was good to go. Only I must have heated it too long or something, because I could not change the colour of the dyebath after adding soda, so I didn’t bother trying to reduce it.

So I went and looked at my overgrown ex vegetable garden and luckily the woad is still growing abundantly too. I think I’ll stick with it, much lower maintenance as it takes care of itself in our climate, and much easier to extract.

And this is what I got from one 30 min. dip.

Rosafarvet cochenille overfarvet med vaid.

Meningen var egentlig at bruge japansk indigo, men jeg kunne ikke få badet til at skifte farve. Da den samtidig er sværere at dyrke, og vaid bare passer sig selv på en brakmark i vores klima, så tror jeg bare jeg holder mig til sidstnævnte i fremtiden, den har været nem at følge proceduren med hver gang.

Common reed – tagrør

Tags

green, iron sulfate, natural dyeing, nature, plantefarvning, silk, wool

It’s time right now here in DK at least to harvest the “feathers” from Phragmites australis.I haven’t used it before and only have time for this one experiment. Some say it can be frozen, others that the dye can be frozen, but nobody seems to be very sure.

The old recipes say to divide your fiber in 2 batches, dyeing one after the other and then dunking half of each portion in iron for 15 minutes (needs to be a warm bath it seems). Several have said that the 2nd bath doesn’t really give much though. One could perhaps dye the first portion for a shorter time? Dye ratio at least 3:1 I’d say for just the one bath.

Anyways, a lovely green. I dyed some birch skeins real quick and did one overdye, which is almost electric to look at.

Some people get a neon green, or like a granny smith apple. Could be the water, could  be that I use CoT and they only use alum? If I run into another batch I may try. I also put a small bunch in the freezer for testing if they keep.

Post on frozen reeds >>

Tid til at høste tagrør

Hvis man er glad for grøn, så er det nu man kan plukke “fjerene” af tagrør og koge dem et par timer. Mindst 3:1 forhold til et enkelt farvebad, de gamle opskrifter siger man kan smide en portion mere i, men det bliver lidt kedeligt. Muligvis skal man tage hold 1 op tidligere end 1 time? Man kan efterdyppe 15 minutter i et varmt bad med jernvitriol for at gøre farven mørk, eller man kan komme gult garn i, som det birkefarvede ovenfor.

Silken blev lidt fesen. Det hele er bejdset med alun. Nogen får mere neon/æblegrøn, om det er vandet eller om det er fordi jeg også bejdser med vinsten vides pt. ikke. Hvis jeg render ind i flere, prøver jeg måske, ellers har jeg som test puttet et par duske i fryseren, for at se om de virker bagefter.

Daffodils / påskeliljer

Tags

green, natural dyeing, wool, yellow

I wanted to test my new plant dyeing yarn type, which I’m very excited about. It’s not only cheaper than my regular supply used to be (it has recently gone up 20% in price), it’s also much nicer. Smoother, more plies, and comes in readymade 25 g hanks.

not the ones I used (1993)

So I’ve been deadheading daffodils for a few days, leaving them to soak in water until I had enough. In fact I was so busy collecting, that I forgot to take a nice flower photo for this post first!

I haven’t had time to do any natural mordanting yet, so I did the usual alum routine.

I didn’t actually expect much, but was pleasantly surprised, especially with the unmordanted hank, which is considerably more coloured than the dandelion hank I did on the same day.

I then collected the last heads and did an iron mordanted hank as well. I’m extremely pleased with this! Remains to be seen how fast these are of course. But I like this green so much compared to other iron induced greens or the nettle sample I did the other day, that I may just get more bulbs in the fall just for dyeing green!

1. unmordanted, 2. alum+CoT, 3. alum+CoT+iron

Daffodil top, nettle bottom (no iron)

Påskeliljer

Det siges jo at man skal prøve alt mindst een gang, så i år hoppede jeg på påskeliljerne. Vi har ikke så mange af de helt gule i haven, men det blev da til et alunbejset fed, et ubejset og et jernbejset.

Jeg samler når de begynder at visne, eller hvis nogen er knækket, og opbevarer i vand indtil der er nok, gerne flere dage.

Jeg blev da glædeligt overrasket over hvor meget farve jeg fik ud af dem, så den er absolut på listen over mulige planter i fremtiden. Faktisk er den grønne ret fantastisk i forhold til det ene fed brændenælde jeg har fået lavet (mere på vej).

Jeg har ikke nået at lave alternative bejsninger, som fx. rabarber, de er kun lige begyndt at kigge frem.

Get your pots and jars ready

Tags

colour, cotton, country life, crafts, dye, flowers, garden, mordant, natural dyeing, nature, plants, silk, spring, summer, wool

Corn Marigold / Glebionis segetum / gul okseøje

Soon the plant dyeing season will be upon us, so it’s time to find yarns and get them mordanted (I always do this ahead of time and then just keep the labelled skeins on hand). This year I’ll be working with more natural mordants such as sea water, tannins, soy and rhubarb leaves.

I’m looking for cheap silk yarns and/or fabrics that I can cut into swatches to add to my sample library. As well as cotton.

I’m also going to help myself to some structure by creating a section for it here on the blog with an easy access plant list of which I’ve done and how, update my tags and some other stuff I’ve been thinking about, hoping that it might prove useful for other people as well. I have a few science experiments in mind that might interest you…

I take requests for topics! Who knows, maybe my library contains items I haven’t even thought about mentioning yet. But please be patient, I won’t be finishing this off in a day or two. In fact I’m feeling a bout of blog fatigue coming on, so we’ll see how it goes!

Tussah silk dyed with the flower above (and a few of its friends)

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Det er ved at være tid til plantefarvning lige om snart – mon der kommer nye vaidplanter? Så det er nu man skal i gang med at samle garn, få det bejset osv. så det er klar hvis man lige skulle få lyst til at smide noget i gryden! I år har jeg tænkt mig at lege med naturlige bejser som havvand, rabarberblade, garvesyre og soyamælk i stedet for eller sammen med metalbejserne.

Så jeg er på jagt efter bomuld og silke, som garn eller stofrester jeg kan bruge til at lave prøver med. Gerne billigt…

For at hjælpe mig selv til at holde struktur på tingene, og måske være en hjælp til andre, går jeg i gang med at udvide plantefarvningssektionen her på bloggen med lister, opskrifter, links, tips og andet. Jeg tager også imod forslag til emner, måske ved jeg noget, som jeg bare ikke har tænkt på at skrive om endnu?

Og jeg vil gøre mit bedste for at også opdatere det hele på dansk. Det kommer nok lidt i bidder hen ad vejen, så kig forbi i ny og næ.

Teaser

Tags

ammonia, blue, hollyhock, natural dyeing, pink, solar dyeing, stokrose, vinegar

Just thought I’d mention that I’m still doing chemistry experiments on the hollyhock, more on Sunday! These are just 2 of 4 jars brewing and more to come….