Dyeing at Hagley's Craft Fair

Yesterday Linda Shinn, Carol Ireland, Gerry Scarfe, Sjon Gravenhorst, and I put on a natural dyeing demonstration at the Hagley Craft Fair.

It was a beautiful fall day, and we spread out and took up quite a chunk of real estate just outside the library.

I believe these are calendula blossom petals. They didn't really give good color of any sort, but that's part of the fun of dyeing with natural materials: you never know quite what you'll get.

Even though my point-and-shoot camera doesn't do a very good job at accurately capturing true colors, I think you'll get an idea of the range of final colors we got from indigo, walnut hulls, cochineal, chrysanthemum petals, onion skins, madder, and goldenrod blossoms on wool, cotton, silk, and angora.

Linda brings along a small basket filled with naturally dyed mini-skeins. See that orange tie at around the 9:00 position? That's connecting the three yellowish skeins. All were dyed with -- gaa! drawing a blank. However, they're different because they were mordanted with different products. Interesting, no?

As I type this, these four 4-oz. lengths of roving are drying (still!) out on my deck. Left to right, they are walnut hulls (late in the dyeing session), walnut hulls (early in the dyeing session), madder (nearly exhausted dyepot), and dried yellow chrysanthemum blossoms. The walnut requires no mordant, but the madder and chrysanthemum both had alum and, I think, cream of tartar, in the dyebath. All four colors will be rolled into bumps and put into the Greenbank Mill gift shop since the roving is from the Greenbank Leicester longwool sheep.

Now is the time to begin plotting and planning on what natural dyeing you can do now and in the coming year. Have fun!

Indigo blues make me happy

On Sunday, a bunch of FiberGuild members descended on Linda's house to brew up a batch of indigo. In the spring, I gave Heather and Natalie some Japanese indigo seedlings for their gardens. They donated their leaves to the effort, and I sacrificed my entire patch.

This is Heather's pot o' indigo, freshly denuded of leaves.

Here's what's left of my contribution. Kind of sad looking, no? Later I went over each stem in the box to capture as many seeds as I could so that those of us who want to grow indigo next year can. Right now the seeds are on a cardboard box on top of my dryer, drying out so that I can clean out all the stems, leaf remnants, and other detritus before dividing up the seeds.

And here's our pot o' leaves. Such excitement! Let me show you why.

This is a jar of indigo ... slurry? ... that Carol brought.

Mmm! Check out that color on the glass and on the scoop.

Linda put a damp skein of natural fiber into the jar.

She gently pushed it into the goo to make sure every fiber was saturated.

In less than a minute, Linda pulled her skein out. You can just see it starting to turn blue as the oxygen hits it.

She smooshed out most of the liquid back into the jar. Waste not, want not, right?

Just look at that color! And that's after very little time at all in the indigo goo. Swoon!

Meanwhile, our leaves were heating up. I don't "do" indigo dyeing unless someone else is there to take responsibility and tell me what to do. I don't do well with measuring, recording, and the like. I'm definitely a seat-of-the-pants dyer, and you can't expect to succeed with indigo if that's your approach.

While I was off playing with one of Linda's dogs, the gang had strained out the leaves, and this is what we had in the pot.

This is the lovely Stacey, our photographer extraordinaire and bright ray of sunshine. Hi, Stacey!

At some point in the process, you have to test the liquid's pH. Again, not my specialty. Anyway, if the liquid's too acid or basic (is that the right word?), you need to add washing soda. That's WASHING soda, folks, not BAKING soda. Big difference.

After the first tablespoon of washing soda was added, blue is starting to appear on the back of the spoon.

At this point, you need to remove the oxygen from the liquid. To do this, some people pour it back and forth from pot to pot; others give it a vigorous, constant stirring. What we did was use a bubbler. If you've ever had an aquarium, you know exactly what this is.

Bubbles are good!

Maisie, the younger of Linda's two dogs, was great entertainment while we were waiting for the indigo to reach the right temperature for dyeing.

"Pay attention to meeeee!"

That scummy film is a sure indicator that we're good to go!

Our very first indigo-dyed yarn! I didn't realize it until this point in the process, but neither Linda nor Carol, my go-to gals for all things dyeing, had ever made an indigo dyebath from fresh leaves. Nicely done, ladies!

Dyeing to dye with walnut hulls

It's that time of year again when walnuts are falling off the tree and into my greedy little hands. I love dyeing with walnut hulls because I don't have to mordant my fiber. Believe me, that dye will work on just about anything, unlike many (most?) natural dyes.

This was all I could find at Greenbank Mill on Monday. They're kind of battered, but that's OK for my purposes.

I pulled out my trusty soup pot, which is used only for dyeing. It used to be nonstick -- not so much anymore.

Next, I located my technologically superior bashing tool. Sure, I could use a hammer, but then I'd have to clean it up. Besides, with the larger surface area, it's impossible to miss whatever it is that I want to hit.

I have no idea how I managed to take this (i.e., it's sideways). It's also out of focus, which is probably a good thing. This particular nut has already begun decomposing. See those white lines just above my middle finger? Yeah, um, those are larvae of some sort. Alive. For now.

This shot is marginally better. No critters but still out of focus. My bashing tool deposited some of itself, but that won't affect the outcome at all. This nut is in really good shape. I prefer to use the nuts while they're still bright green and with minimal to no black spots.

Be sure to put the nuts out for the squirrels or chipmunks. Important safety note: put those nuts somewhere where the lawnmower won't turn them into lethal projectiles.

I should mention that it's really important to wear gloves while you're handling these nuts. Of course, if you don't mind black stains on your skin and under your nails, then go for it. Walnut hulls stain like crazy, which is one reason why I'm smushing them on the driveway. Another reason is that I'm too lazy to find something else to do it on (e.g., newspaper, an old shower curtain, etc.).

Here are all the hulls in the pot. Ideally, you should probably break them into smaller pieces, although, now that I think about it, I don't know if it matters, especially if you have a ready supply of walnuts. Don't worry if leaves, "helicopters," or some dirt winds up in the pot.

I'm good to go!

I took a stroll over to the wading pool (aka our dog's pool) and put some rainwater in the pot. You can see that already the dye is starting to leach out into the water. Excellent!

It's now the next day. Just so you can see the kind of color you might expect, I grabbed a small handful of grayish white Wensleydale and put half of the fiber into the pot.

Just look at all that dye!

Right out of the pot after about 10 hours of just sitting and soaking.

And this is how it looks after a quick rinse under running water. Mmm! A lovely orange-brown, which is exactly what I was going for. I've seen a lot of muddy (to me) browns from walnut hulls, but I got this surprising color last fall, so I knew the key: use those green hulls. Caveat: your mileage may vary. In other words, I'm sure it all depends on what kind of walnut hull you use, the condition it's in, and whether you heat the dyebath.

I'm an imprecise dyer. I prefer to just throw things around (safely, of course) and be surprised by what I get. I suppose it's a good thing I didn't go into a profession where precise protocols are required. Hmm ... although as a writer and editor, I do try to be precise. The difference must be that I don't have to measure and record data.

There you have it. Embrace dyeing with walnut hulls. Just remember to wear something you won't mind being stained!

My Nerd Wars dissertation: silk and fun with indigo

A couple weekends ago on Worldwide Knit in Public Day I went to Greenbank Mill. Of course I'll knit anytime, anywhere; however, I was compelled to go because of one thing: an indigo dyepot.

That greenish tinge and surface scum let you know that it's good to go.

A fellow Raveler named Pallas sent an envelope of Japanese indigo seeds to me last fall. I did as instructed and put them in the fridge for the winter. Wonder of wonders, they weren't thrown out and weren't lost. What are the odds? (Hint: not good).

Here are some of the seedlings I grew and donated to Greenbank Mill's dye garden.

One of the attendees was a lovely young woman who'd brought along her wedding shawl for a dip in the dyepot. Since I'm terrible with names, I can't remember hers. I do, however, know that she's a friend of Heather, who was in charge of the day's dyeing. (For a bride-to-be, she was remarkably calm for being just 7 days away from the big event.)

Here is the before shot of her shawl (unblocked, naturally).

 After a dunk in some hot water, it's ready for dyeing.

 

 After just a few minutes, dyemaster Heather pulled the shawl out of the pot and made sure that every bit of the knitting had a chance to be exposed to the air. With indigo, you have to go on a bit of faith that the blue will magically appear. When you pull the item from the dyepot, the color is initially yellow. It's only as oxygen permeates the dye that the blue develops.

 And voila, a lovely blue shawl for the bride. Everyone oohed and ahhed. Dyeing with indigo never gets old.

 I hope that Heather posts pictures of her friend wearing the shawl. I'm not a girly girl and so don't get all squee-rific about weddings; however, there's just something about a handmade shawl hand-dyed with a natural plant one week before the wedding makes me just melt.

 Here's my "stuff," waiting to be dyed. For this second tournament in Nerd Wars (over at Ravelry), I'm on the Supernatural Team. My project is a "dissertation," meaning that it will take me three months to complete.

So, here's the first part of my entry: nearly 1,000 yards of hand-spun unbleached Tussah silk from this year's Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. I'm telling you, spinning that silk is just about a close to a drug-like state as I can get these days. The way it handles, the way it shines, the way it plies -- it's all just a fabulous dream. Happy happy, joy joy!

 Here goes my pre-wetted silk into the hot pot.

 And here it goes into the dyepot. Just look at that beautiful dark-blue scum -- mmm! (Not quite sure why the Rit dye box was there ... maybe Heather brought it along as a backup?)

 Just look at that! You can see that the yarn is primarily yellow. If you look at about the 11:00 position, though, you can see where the yarn is turning blue. It must have been just above the top of the dye.

 And here we go. The yellow gradually gives way to a faint blue, then a teal-ish blue.

 The blue just keeps developing. Now it's more of a Wedgewood blue. We had quite a time with the skeins -- they tangled a bit and I'd tied each off just a tad too tightly. I only discovered the latter when I wound one of the dried skeins into a "cake." Oh, well. If I wanted absolute uniformity in my yarn, I'd just buy it, right?

 The first dip left the yarn a bit lighter than I wanted, so it went back in for a second dip. And here it is, in all its glory.

 See what I mean about the tangles? But this picture is really accurate when it comes to both the color and sheen of the yarn.

 I just now took this picture, and Im not exactly happy with it. The day is overcast, and I just don't have the time or patience to futz around with settings, lighting, etc.

So there's the indigo silk yarn and the shawl I'll be making with it. The project has to relate to Supernatural, and my take on it is pretty much that shawls make me think of hugs, and those Winchester boys sure could use 'em (hugs, that is) as they hunt demons. Since I am my father's daughter, I also related Dean and Sam constantly having to leave one town for the next one to the leaf motif (get it? leaf / leave -- awful, I know).

 And just another shot -- going for artsy here. Again, without changing the lighting. I do just love that macro setting, though. Up close and personal!

There you have it. Indigo dyeing and my awesome silk. I'll do my best to post progress pictures. I have through the end of August to complete my project. Guess I need to "man up" and cast on already!