July 22, 2013
A Day of Dying
(L to R: Box Elder bark, onion skins, Sow Thistle with some additions-see below, grey wool dyed with Quebracho Red).
We removed the yarn from the Box Elder dye pot where it had been steeping over night. No more color appeared to develop by letting it stand. The result is a very nice beige color. It was a lot of work for the color, so even though I like it, I probably won't do it again. Besides, the smell was really awful!
We looked at the jar of sow thistle petals (see 7/20/13). We decided to try to get a bit more color be heating them. I simmered them in a pot for a while and the strained and cooled the liquid. I added the wool and heated it. It looked a lot like the leafy spurge wool, so I added some Cream of Tartar. The pot quickly lost much of its color! I don't understand why that would happen. Any ideas would be
appreciated!
I decided that since I had other pots going, I would just play around. I added a cup of Quebracho Red dye bath and a cup of the onion skin dye bath. I let that simmer for a while longer and then cooled the pot. One thing I have learned from the dying I have done this summer is that unless you are attempting to get a specific color, you can't make a mistake! I have thought on occasion that I have done something to 'ruin the pot' but so far, I have not come up with a color using natural dye stuff that I don't like!
This is the yarn ready to spin. It turned into a lovely apricot color!
The last experiment for the day was to try dying some of my naturally grey wool. I have a fleece that is a beautiful silvery grey. I wanted to use something with a fairly strong color. I still have the dye bath from the first run of Quebracho Red. I decided to try that. At first I was disappointed with the results. It just looked as though it had darkened the yarn. After the yarn was completely dry, I realized that there is some of the salmon color of the Quebracho. It may be hard to see in the photo.
