Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Natural dying


On one of the yahoo groups there was a discussion on soaking wood chips in alcohol. As I was reading, it reminded me that I had some wood chips soaking for six months. So I decided to do some test samples to see what I would get if anything from what I had soaking.

What I had soaking was nutmeg, hickory chips, apple wood chips and I remembered I had some mushrooms in the freezer as well. So I decided to do some dye experiments. I don’t remember were I herd or read this but someone uses small baby food jars when sampling. I liked the idea and decided I would try that for my experiments as well.

I did this for all four sample batches.

1 Made a mordant solution of each mordant (a pint of each mordant)

2 Made the dye bath

3 Placed the sample yarn, 1/4c of mordant solution and 3/4c of dye in each jar (one jar for each mordant)

4 Placed each sealed jar in a large pot of hot water (just like you do to process can goods)

5 Left the jars simmer in the water bath for and hour

6 After cooled I let them dry, rinsed, washed, rinsed again and let them dry.


So I had a total of seven jars one with no mordant added, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinegar and washing soda. The dye baths were simmered at 212 degrees and the water bath was at 202 degrees. I like the way this worked out and have decided to use this method again when I have new dye stuff later this year to try out.

The fun stuff that I’m going to try out this year after I get them growing is, henna, amaranth red dye, dyer’s broom, eucalyptus, French marigold, weld, bull’s blood beet. If you take a look below you will see the finished results.

This is Nutmeg from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager.
This is Hickory wood from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager and washing soda.
This is Apple wood from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager and washing soda.
This is Mushroom from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager and washing soda.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing...


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