Dyeing in 2014

Tags

blogging, colour, dyeing, mordant, plants, seasons, solar dyeing

A lot of readers come here while searching for posts on plant dyeing and some of you probably subscribed for that only. I realize that it’s been quiet on that front during the winter months, so I just wanted to make a service announcement that there will indeed be more posts about dyeing eventually. In fact I have several half done drafts I could begin with…

Soon I’ll be ordering seeds, this year I’m going to replace the coreopsis with orange cosmos to try out. There won’t be as many different plants as last year, rather new experiments with old ones. And I hope to be making things with my older dyed yarns to show. The first yarn I used felts really well but is very scratchy, so I’m looking for ideas for non-clothing. Baskets, bags, cushion covers, knit, crochet, woven, felted, pictures or pattern suggestions are welcome!

Some acid dyeing adventures are also likely to happen. I hope you’ll forgive me for skipping around between various topics, but that’s what real life is like here at the cottage.

I’ll try to make it easily accessible via the menu up top.

Farvning i 2014

Plantefarvningsindlæg har jo været lidt sparsomme her i vinter, men jeg kan se at de gamle stadig bliver læst ganske ofte, så jeg syntes lige jeg ville udsende en servicemeddelelse i den anledning. Der kommer helt sikkert mere farveri på programmet i år, ikke kun planter, men også pulverfarve.

Jeg bestiller snart frø og regner med at erstatte skønhedsøje med orange cosmos. Der bliver ikke så mange nye eller forskellige eksperimenter, jeg gentager heller ikke dem fra sidste år, men snarere nye eksperimenter med gamle kendinge.

Der skulle også være en chance for at få lavet lidt færdige ting med det plantefarvede garn, som jeg kan vise frem. Det garn jeg har brugt filter rigtig godt, men er ret krads, så hvis I har gode ideer til ting, frem for tøj, som man kan strikke, hækle, væve, filte, fx. tasker, puder, kurve osv, så del meget gerne billeder eller opskrifter! 🙂

Selvom jeg har opgivet at oversætte alle mine indlæg her på bloggen, vil jeg dog fortsætte med det når det gælder plantefarvningen, som minimum, evt. også andre garnrelaterede emner. Jeg håber I vil bære over med mig at jeg sådan springer i diverse emner hen over året, men det er sådan der ser ud her i farvehytten, både virtuelt og i virkeligheden.

Der er et særligt menupunkt i toppen til emnet, så jeg håber det er rimelig nemt at finde rundt.

Pink with Amaranth

Tags

pink, solar dyeing, wool

Not mine, but I think some of you might like to see this. It’s in German, but the pictures are worth it. (as well as the pictures on all her posts) Cold dyed with vinegar. Species used: amaranthus cruentus x powellii.

Rosendame macht was.

Herbal dyeing

Tags

blue, cotton, green, plants, solar dyeing, solfarvning, wool

“Red” sage 3:1 in rainwater. Left it rather long in the dyebath because nothing much seemed to be happening, came out a nice fresh green eventually, which has now been sent to solar testing.

Purple basil 2:1, hard water. Plants boiled, yarn then solar dyed for 2 days. Dyebath blue, no pH alteration on my part. Rita Buchanan says it’s the same colour molecule as in Hollyhock, so it should be able to give blue and purple at other pH, I suspect red cabbage and black currant are in the same group, as they respond with the same colour scale. Hard to get onto the yarn and very fugitive. Also sent to solar testing in the bedroom window – I don’t have high hopes, but I’m wishing, because it’s such a nice green!

When the purple basil grows back I’ll test it with tin mordant, I got a good purple with black currants.

It’s interesting that the unmordanted cotton ties turned blue, so I popped a failed cotton skein with 4 other layers on it into the exhaust. It would be interesting to test on silk as well.

I’ve also prepared some jars for solar dyeing:

Dyer’s chamomile, coreopsis, oregano, marigold,  tagetes, weld leaves.

Urtefarvning

Ikke at jeg tror farverne er særligt lysægte, men det skulle lige prøves, farvning med rød basilikum og salvie. (jeg har også sået bronzefennikel, men de skal lige blive lidt større)

Salviegarnet skulle ligge ret lang tid før det tog farve, det samme gælder basilikum, som jeg valgte at solfarve i drivhuset et par dage. Farvebadet og bomuldssnorene blev blå, men uldgarnet blev grønt. Det skulle være samme farvemolekyle som stokroser, så det er nok ret pH følsomt, hvis man vil skrue lidt på farven.

Jeg har også gang i et par glas i drivhuset, hvor de bare står og gasser i solen. Fra venstre Farvegåseurt, Skønhedsøje, oregano, morgenfrue, tagetes og vau.

cotton

Horsetail – Agerpadderok

Tags

green, mad science, solar dyeing, wool

equisetum arvense

2011:

2012:

2013:

So, how did I achieve the first skein in a bright yellow colour? Young plants? Not using a lot of dyestuff?

I know they were a bit old this year, but the 2011 was photographed on June 28th and I don’t know if it had been just dyed or if it was a larger photosession (I see other yarns on the same day in my photo folder – no notes). And some old books state that you pick fully developed plants and then dry them before dyeing. Others say fresh and green. That’s usually May/early June here.

The other difference being, this year I solar dyed the yarn. Very greenish this time (in fact the same but a bit lighter as the Lady’s Mantle), whereas more in the brown direction last year.

Whether I’ll use this plant again or not, depends on the lightfastness test – I’m busy making strips to test for the next 2 months. Since so many plants give yellow, I’m actually more interested in developing the greens, so iron and copper could be interesting. The old books use chrome, but that’s no longer available here.

Incidentally, if you like a good beige, go for the spore thingies in early spring. According to said books.

På dansk

Jeg har testet padderok de sidste 3 år, første år har jeg ingen noter fra, så jeg gætter på at jeg måske har brugt meget friske, unge skud til den lysegule farve. Ulden fra 2012 er brungrumset, og årets garn, som er solfarvet 4 dage med ret gamle planter, er så blevet grønligt; det er faktisk samme farve som garnet med Løvefod, blot en tand lysere.

Jeg er gået i gang med at lave test for lysægthed, den vil bestemme om jeg vil farve med denne plante igen en anden gang.

Tagetes 1

Tags

colour, solar dyeing, wool, yellow

First test dye with this flower, I began with this type, Tagetes tenuifolia “lemon gem”:

43 g of flowers to 25 g of alum/CoT mordanted yarn.

After 2 minutes in the lukewarm dye pot – do I see solar dyeing potential or what?!

I’m going to try the other variety I have on its own too, same procedure, to see if they are different, or if I can just toss it all in one pot. I’m also going to see if I can dry them and use later.

Tagetes 2

Tagetes 3

Appelsintagetes

Første forsøg plukker jeg hver slags tagetes for sig og farver et enkelt fed for at se hvordan det ser ud. Flere tests følger! Jeg tror de vil egne sig godt til solfarvning, se blot grydebilledet, hvor garnfeddet har ligget 2 minutter i det lune farvebad!

Jeg har her brugt 43 g blomster og 25 g garn.

Hollyhock 2

Tags

blue, green, lavender, modifier, mordant, purple, solar dyeing, stokroser, vinegar, wool

My experiments with Hollyhock flowers continue. This time a “solar” dye technique, using variations of indoor temperatures to mimick summer.

Rainwater, vinegar, pH 4. 35 g yarn, 10 g dry flowers. Left on top of fireplace 2 days. I shook it up once in a while when taking photos of the progress. Shelf temp. 60-65 C when fired up, 40-45 C on the top of stove (where I let it remain), 15 C in the morning.

30 minutes – 3 hours – 24 hours

2 days

compared to first batch which have faded a bit while in the cupboard…

Same procedure, pH 6-7 (my strips are not super accurate) yielded pretty much the same shade, so I took the remains of the dyebath, put in ammonia until it was way up (11+, it takes only drops….), then dunked it for a minute. Thought I might as well compare it to the “boiled green”. There are some strands that had not as much dip as the rest, they turned blue. I left them as such, for science. 😉

Next, both exhausts mixed and upped to pH 8, 2 days on stove. As you change the pH the dyebath pretty much changes to the colour you’ll get on the yarn, how’s that for an indicator? I had fun adding ammonia to get green, then vinegar water to make it rosy again with the last bit of dyebath before I poured it out.

This skein is incredibly hard to photograph to the exact shade – as close as I got today in the snow.

flash photo – always a bit brighter that life…

As you can see however, once I took it out I didn’t quite get the steel blue (left jar below) or the baby blue of the strands on the previous skein, may have left it in there too long and it got too alkaline. A safer bet if you want sky blue may be to do a neutral 6-7 pH lavender then a dip in pH 8. Maybe it takes even less to turn it.

I think I’m going to have to try and get some dark red flowers and see if they give a more rosy warm shade. I thought the acid one would be, given the heather rosy tint I got on the first project with a vinegar afterdip – maybe afterdips are different, maybe if was the temperature? As you can see the dyebath starts out very pink, then to turn purple over time. Could be a completely cold dye procedure would be different yet again. Or maybe I need to push the acid lower than 4 if we have green on the opposite end, then blue, purple in the middle and ?

Join us next week in the quest for pink, 2 more jars in this series still cooking… I’m thinking that perhaps the lavender skein was closer to neutral pH, since it was identical to the neutral one, so I’ll have to conduct another test with the exhaust from the red jar below. Meaning, I need to mordant more yarn to get reliable comparisons, meaning y’all need to wait for a bit.

In the meantime, I’ve also mordanted the rest of my Dorset fleeces in tin/alum/CoT, about 650 g. So look out for “Hollyhock 3”. Or possibly 4.

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Stokroser 2

Nye eksperimenter, denne gang farvet ved stuetemperatur, dvs. jeg forsøgte at kopiere solfarvning ved at stille glassene på brændeovnen, det giver 40-45 grader om dagen og ca. 15 om natten. 2 døgn hver ved pH 3, 6 og 8. Den mellemste lignede grangiveligt den første, så den fik et meget basisk dyp til sidst og blev en flot grøn. Spørgsmålet er, om jeg har fejlmålt pH værdien på det første fed, og det måske var nærmere neutral, dette er jeg i gang med at teste….

Jeg har brugt regnvand, men nu hvor vi har fået frost er jeg nok nødt til at bruge vandhanen, selvom det evt. godt kan give et mere gråligt resultat at dømme fra første test.

Næste test er dels tinbejset, dels helt “koldt” bad uden ovn og, når jeg får dyrket nogen, mørkerøde blomster i stedet for sort-violette. Noget tyder dog på at det er pH værdien som er afgørende, så jeg er i gang med næste test i ren eddike.

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….

Berries take 2

Tags

green, kitten, mordant, purple, seasons, solar dyeing, wool

No privet berries this year, and not a lot of elderberries either, so I thought I’d boil the ones I had for drinking and add some to a couple of jars, sugar, yes, no idea what that’ll do. It’s said that alkaline gives green, vinegar gives red and salt gives blue, now, did I really want to “waste” 3 whole skeins? Nah – we makes smaller ones I think.

As it turned out, my juicer-steamer thing got too full, so I cooked 500 g. of clusters in a pot and strained for the dye, no sugar.

They say silk dyes well with berries (they as in a book I read), but I did not have any mordanted silk ready. Also to try is tin mordant mentioned in a book. That is, if these are any good.

I’ve been told that cold dyeing with berries works better, as usual it’s not proper cold since the liquid has been heated to extract the juice, but the really cold method will have to be when I actually have an abundance in berries.

pH of the jars today are: Juice: 3, vinegar: 1, pot ash: 10, salt: 7 (just to try a different pH, and yes, I know I haven’t tried 3). I’ll leave them for about a week, that’s what I did with the beetroot.

I didn’t think straight to use rain water, like I normally do, our tap water is hard but neutral in pH.

Since I don’t have any yarnpix yet, here’s one of my little helper making mini skeins. Well, he’s involved in the process, anyway. With my “lovely” tablecloth for dyeing on the dinner table 😉

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Hyldebær

Jeg kunne ikke lige nære mig for at prøve bær igen, bare på nogen små fed, da jeg havde læst at det går bedre med kold-farvning. Dvs. jeg har ikke fået så mange bær i år, så det blev bare fra en enkelt portion i saftkogeren. En anden gang vil jeg prøve at bare smide det hele i en spand nogen uger.

Små fed med hhv eddike, potaske og salt i skal stå en uges tid og glo. Det fungerede fint med rødbede, bare garnet ikke skal stå midt i solen bagefter.

Glemte at bruge regnvand, sådan kan det gå når man har for mange jern i ilden og en killing at trampe på.

Eftersom jeg ikke har garnbilleder endnu, har jeg et af min lille hjælper som laver minifed. Og min fine røde garnfarvevoksdug til spisebordet. 😀

On mould and rot

Tags

blade, colour, experimenting, leaves, plants, preservative, solar dyeing

Last year I had a bucket full of beautiful, golden dye, I’m not sure which plant I’d used (thinking celandine), but it was strong and sunny and the cotton pillowcases I dunked in there soon looked very cheerful as well. Then, hungering to see just how much dye they could take, I left the bucket a few more days. When I came back, it had all turned brown and there was mould starting to grow on top, it was slimy and smelly and  not sunny at all.

Sometimes you don’t have to leave it out for weeks, just sayin.

So I’ve been thinking, would it be cheating to add a slosh of preservative like what I use for jam? And would it even work in a container that’s not sealed?

So I decided to use a leaf dyeing experiment to try out the concept at least. One with jam preservative, one with vinegar. And well, I’m going to throw in a pot of Celandine too, they need some purging anyway. I can just make it before it gets cold I think.

There are pros an cons of course – since the rot can probably give you both surprises as well as a variety of colour that you wouldn’t normally get. But if that’s not what you want…

With the birch leaves I got exactly the same colour on the yarn, but the bucket without preservative got smelly and mouldy, the other lasted fine for a week in my greenhouse. So, some yellow dyes are ruined, some keep their colour.

Celandine results will be updated later!

I also added preservative to the jars of silk soaking up Dyer’s chamomile dye. No mould or funny smell at all even after weeks. They were in tightly closed mason jars.

So far it looks like the vinegar does as well as the preservative. About a month before both buckets of cloths got a bit mouldy on top, that was after I’d looked several times and taken the cloths out, not putting the lid back on properly.