More to Come

I've been absent from the blog for a couple of months now.  I wanted to enjoy my summer as much as possible and it's hard to justify hours in front of the internet when I could be swimming or picking blackberries with the boys.

The other reason that I took a break was that Myrtille and I had a falling out.  The division of our business was less than amicable, but I was able to salvage the blog.



I haven't made up my mind yet about whether or not to go forward with a business.  I absolutely love natural dyeing and invested quite a bit in setting up a dye kitchen.  I'm toying with a couple of ideas.  One of the benefits of the dissolution of our partnership is more creative freedom.   



If life has taught me anything, it's to make the best of what I have.  I'm looking forward to sharing my adventures in the dye kitchen with all of you.  I'll keep you posted about any future plans.

Thanks,
    Julienne

1000g of wool

I dyed nine skeins of wool and one 100g hank of roving today. 

Coreopsis tinctoria

 The first three hanks were dyed with various flowers from my dye garden.  I've been cutting and drying them for about two weeks now.  They were a mix of coreopsis tinctoria, yellow and orange marigolds, dyers camomile and a couple of Mexican zinnias.  They were a mix of dried and fresh flowers so weighing them wouldn't have mattered.  I'm guessing that there were about 100g of flowers total.

First and second mixed flower dye extractions

 The first extraction produced a vibrant orange.  Two subsequent baths produced softer and duller peachy oranges. I used the exhaust baths to dye 100g of Shetland roving.
The best surprise of the day was a test I did with some dried chocolate cosmos.  The sample is a deep olive green with warm orange overtones.

Chocolate cosmos test

I made a few more baths with fermented lichen liquors. 

Dyeing with fermented lichen liquor

I saved the leftover lichen for a second fermentation.

The leftover lichen

The last bath was a bit of an experiment.  It was an "ice flower" bath made from dark purple petunias and pansies.  I got the idea from India Flint's book "Eco Colour".  The flowers are frozen and then boiling water is poured over then.  The dye is massaged out and then the skein of wool is added.  It's not a light fast dye, but I though I'd give it a try.  The bath was a bright blue until I added the skein of wool.  Apparently these flower dyes are very sensitive to ph.

Ice flower bath

All of the yarns I dyed today were premordanted with alum.

Weld and Broom

I've been very busy preparing for our very first wool festival here in the Lot.  Thankfully, I've found some time this week for dyeing.  It always helps to have a large stash of mordanted wool just waiting for the pot. 

A few coreopsis flowers drying in a bowl.

 The other day, while on a drive, I saw out of the corner of my eye a large patch of weld growing on the side of the road.  Upon closer inspection I discovered that it was in fact two patches of weld, and so I cut a few stalks and left the rest to reseed itself.  The weld plants were easily taller than I am and my husband laughed as I tried to cram them into our car.
 Weld has long been used by dyers as a reliable source of yellow, and in tandem with woad or indigo to make a bright green.  I cut up my treasure and threw it into a dye pot.  After three extractions I had enough dye liquor to dye about 500g of wool.
 

The weld bath

It didn't come out quite as expected.  I've never used weld before, but I thought it would give me a good solid yellow with no green undertones, instead I got something closer to celadon than yellow.  It's a lovely color, but there's also a surprising amount of variegation.

The second weld bath

For my second dye pot I chose the use the perfumed yellow pea like flowers of the broom plant.  I gathered about 300g of just the flowers and made up a bath.  The bath didn't look very strong, but it was full of dye.  I dyed a 100g skein of merino silk laceweight. 

A skein dyed with broom drying in the shower

 Then I decided to make a second bath with the same flowers and I added it to the first bath.  I threw in two skeins of bulky weight merino wool.  They came out a bright buttery yellow.  There was obviously still some dye left in the bath so I added two more skeins of wool,  some sport weight merino.  It's already a nice delicate yellow.  I can't believe how much dye I've gotten out of so few flowers.  I'll have to go out and gather more. 
I also managed to find some time to start collecting plant materials to sell. 

Everlasting flowers drying

 The yarrow and the everlasting are both in bloom right now, and they make nice squat aromatic bundles. 

Everlasting in bloom

 My fig was sending up too many suckers, so I hung up a bunch of fig leaves to dry. 

Fig and cardoon leaves drying

My cardoons are about to flower, so It's the perfect time to take a few leaves.  My house is fast turning into an upside down garden. 

Avocado Pits and Skins

I've been very busy getting ready for our big debut at the "Le Lot et La Laine" festival in July.  This hasn't left me with a lot of time to take pictures of my work, but I did manage to snap a few photos of a batch of skeins that I dyed with avocado pits and skins.

The dye kitchen

 Here's my method.  Wash skins and pits carefully.  Chop them up into little pieces and throw them in a zip lock bag in the freezer until you have enough for a dyeing session.  Find a nice large glass jar with a tight fitting lid and fill about one third of the jar with the frozen pits and skins.  Fill the jar up with a mixture of one part ammonia to two parts water.  Shake it up whenever you pass by the jar and let it ferment for at least a couple of days.  I let mine ferment for a week.  Be sure to filter the solution before you use it for dyeing.  I like to use pieces of old cotton bed sheets for filtering.  Coffee filters take too long.

Mohair skeins in the dye bath

Mohair skeins dyed with avocado pits and skins.

  I wasn't very scientific about this particular dye session, but it went very well.  I dyed four 100g skeins of mohair and two 100g skeins of silk merino lace weight with only about 200g of dye stuffs.  The mohair took a long time to absorb the dye.  

Mohair drying on the line.

The silk merino laceweight took the dye beautifully, but did seem to pick up some dark patches.  They might have come from a little bit of residue at the bottom of the pot.  I have another bag of chopped up avocado pits in the freezer right now.  Skins and pits give dusty rose colors.  Pits only give red-oranges.  I'm looking forward to trying the pits on their own. 

Lichen Troubles

I've just found out, the hard way, that light fastness is a serious issue.  This morning I took a rose pink lichen dyed skein out of the bath and hung it on the line to dry.  I hung it in the shade, but over the course of a couple of hours the sun moved, and my skein changed colors radically.

I'm looking into ways of making the pink light fast.  I hope that I can figure this out.  The original pink was so bright and unusual.  I've never heard of lichens fading this quickly.  The skein was probably only in the sun for an hour.  The pale blue is pretty, but I don't think it's light fast either.  I'll have to do some more tests.

Bundling

This is a monster post, but I have so many things to report.  We've had a bit of rainy weather, but that hasn't stopped me from dyeing.  After my day with Myrtille, I managed to get some samples made from our little dye tests.  Here are the samples.

Left to Right: Madder tops and roots, Cornelian cherry branches, Cornelian cherry flowers

I was very happy to have found another good source of yellow dye.  The flowers from the cornelian cherry are beginning to fade, but they'll be a welcome addition to the dye pot next year.  They're one of the first things to flower in our area.   Interestingly, the cornelian cherry is not a true cherry, but rather a member of the dogwood family.  The fruits are edible, but are not very palatable.  I've used them with blackberries to make a good jam.

Sample from cornelian cherry flowers.

The wild madder tops and roots were interesting.  I've got all kinds of ideas about how to make use of this wild plant.  The sample is a lovely orange with a touch of red where the sample was in contact with the roots.



The cornelian cherry bark sample is a weak golden olive color, but bark usually takes a lot longer to give up good color.  I'll try it again some other time.



Today I had one alum mordanted skein sitting in a bucket of rinse water and I thought I'd try a bit of bundling a la India Flint.  I chose oak moss, Holm oak leaves and onion skins.  I didn't want to have trouble picking out the vegetable matter later.  I squeezed the excess water out of the skein, and laid it out on a nonreactive tray. 

It took a little while to layer in all of the leaves, lichen and skins, but it was a lot of fun.



I used a bit of old cotton sheet to hold on a final layer before I tied it all up like a roast.  I put the bundle in a steamer basket and steamed it for about 40 min.  I turned it over once or twice while it was steaming.

The steamed bundle.

I let it cool, and then I unwrapped it.



I think I was supposed to wait a day or two, but I couldn't help myself. 

 



 It was easy to pick out dye stuffs, even while wet.  There were some very cool colors.  The Holm oak leaves didn't seem to dye at all, but they may have reacted with the onion skins to leave some blue and green marks.  Next time, I'll try freezing them before using them for contact dyeing.





This method was so much fun, and such a great way to get a painted look.  I'm going to make a couple of dye concentrates to finish off this skein.  The next time I do hot bundling, I'll try and leave them rolled up for a couple of days.  Even the little piece of cotton cloth that I used to wrap up the bundle was dyed.



Last but not least, I've taken some pictures of my growing pile of naturally dyed skeins (BFL/nylon sock wool).  They look so pretty all lined up together. 

Left to Right: 2 skeins sage 1st bath, mushrooms, carrot tops 1st and 2nd bath, 2 juniper skeins, 2 skeins sage 2nd bath

 

 

Left to Right: Sage, Mushrooms, Carrot, Carrot 2nd bath

Holm Oak leaves first bath, Hellebore flowers 1st bath

The Holm oak dyed skeins are my favorite. 

Holm oak leaf dyed skein still wet from the bath.

Holm oak leaf skein from the 1st bath.

  The fist bath is a warm chestnut color, and the second bath is almost as intense, but cooler in tone.

Holm oak leaf dyed skeins 1st and second baths.

The first hellebore bath came out just like the sample. 

Hellebore flower dyed skein, 1st bath.

The exhaust bath produced a soft lemony skein.

Skeins drying.  Second bath holm oak leaves and hellebore flowers.

Next week I'll see if I can come up with some good greens.

Little Pots

The morning after I made my first six sample pots, I tucked a bit of alum mordanted wool into each of them and placed them in a bain marie.   The colors had changed considerably over night and I was eager to make some tests.

The bain marie.

  After about an hour of low simmering I pulled the glass yogurt cups out and let them cool on the counter.  I couldn't wait to check out the colors, and so I pulled out the little samples, squeezed the excess dye out with my fingers and dropped them onto a paper towel.  I quickly labeled them to avoid confusion. 

Right to left: Oak, Everlasting leaves, Everlasting stems

Right to Left: Hairy rose hips, Hellebore leaves, Hellebore flowers

 There were many surprises.  The rose hips made a nice rusty orange, but it wasn't quite as red as I had hoped it would be.  The oak leaves were a lovely warm peach.  The hellebore tests were probably the most exciting.  The flowers made a primary yellow and the leaves made a good strong golden yellow.  The everlasting leaves made a really electric yellow with a touch of green, but the stems were a bit of a disappointment.  When I came down in the morning the test for the everlasting stems was blue green, a very pronounced blue green.  In the bath it darkened considerably, but the color didn't really take.  Here's what the jar looked like after the bath.

The everlasting stem bath.

 I wish I could get that color onto my wool.  Oh well, you can't win them all.  Today was also productive.  I finally had a chance to strain and dye with the 200g of what I believe are phellinus tuberculosus mushrooms that I had fermenting on the kitchen counter. You can see pictures of them in this post.  They had been there for a good four weeks and my husband was happy to see them go into the compost.  I also made up a bath with 300g of carrot tops from the market.  The color from the carrot tops was a stunning yellow green.  The mushrooms made a soft peach.  The skeins are still drying on the rack.  I'll post pictures as soon as I get the chance.

Right to Left: Mushroom bath, Carrot top bath

Myrtille came over for a "Dye Lot" planning session and we had a very full day of chatting over the dye pots.  We even went for a walk and collected some more samples for dye tests.  Myrtille wanted to test some flowers from a wild fruit tree, the name of which I'll have to look up.

Right to Left: Madder tops and roots, Yellow Flowers, Tree bark

  I pulled up some wild madder which grows on just about every rock wall we have.  We also collected hellebore flowers and oak leaves for two more dye baths. 

Madder, flowers, bark

When we got back to the house I got out some glass yogurt pots and we cut up the flowers and the madder.  I took the branches from the flowers and decided to test them too.  We poured boiling water over and watched as the color started to collect in the pots.  Myrtille's flowers immediately made the water turn yellow.  The pot with the bark from that same wild fruit tree has gone a soft peachy pink.  The madder started out yellow, but is now a burnt orange color.

The madder pot.

While we waited for the pots, we decided to cut up the oak leaves for a dye bath.  We managed to chop up 175g before getting bored. 

Oak leaves

 I'm going to dry the rest of the leaves. They should be much easier to crumble when they're dry.  Also, I'd like to see if there's a difference in the dye depending on whether or not the leaves are fresh or dried.  We made the bath of fresh oak leaves.  I pulled out a jar to show you the color of the bath. 

The oak leaf bath.

The hellebore flowers are simmering in the pot.  I'm not going to simmer them for too long.  I've read that flower dyes don't usually like too much heat or long simmering.

 I was so busy trying to think of what to make for dinner that I forgot to weigh the flowers before tossing them into the pot.....another victim of multitasking.