Natural Dyeing of Vegetable Fibres

 

I think  of myself as a natural dyer, I do quite a bit of it with ANIMAL fibres. If I want to dye vegetable fibres like cotton or linen I have  use Procion dyes. However, during  a workshop I was running last year I got asked about natural dyeing for vegetable fibres. This was a very apt question as I now live in an area that was, historically, very important in terms of the growth and use of vegetable fibres- namely hemp and flax. I understand that the house I live in was once on land owned by Flaxlands Farm two doors away from my house and that the garden contained a retting pool. 

From this discussion I determined to research natural dyeing of vegetable fibres and try and find, or develop,  a method of dyeing them that gave the same saturated colours and fastness that I can achieve with wool. Many of the naturally dyed fibres and materials that I saw in my research were very pale and to be perfectly honest I am not interested in these. I wanted something that was vibrant, too many people seem to think that natural dyes only give washed out pastel shades. 

So I used my scientific background to take on this challenge. It was essential to consider the chemistry and structure of both the animal and plant fibres. It was here that my ‘old’ textile books came into their own. Different ‘experts’ had their own recipes for scouring and mordanting plant fibres but there was no way of knowing who was just quoting someone else’s method and no explanations of why these methods were noted as being THE way of doing it. For some of the methods I wondered if the author had ever even tried the method before quoting it in print. I have quite an extensive dye section in my textile ‘library’ and used online sources too from open access books, blogs and websites.  

The one thing I do know is that I have not discovered THE way of doing it, but I  currently have a method that works for me, that I can rationalise and partially understand and I think I can improve on still further. 

So I have tried 5 methods of preparing the fibres. I used hemp and cotton from the same sources throughout and each time used the same plant dye liquid extract at the same liquid to dry mass of fibre ratio. I have also dyed wool with the same dye liquid as my standard that I hope to reach with the vegetable fibre dyeing. 

I know that in natural dyeing with wool, the scouring of the fibre  and mordanting are key to the success of the final dyed yarn. I guessed (and found it to be true) that this is also the case with dyeing plant fibres. 

This is the undyed wool and wool dyed with Meadowsweet that I used as comparison 

I will summarise each test and show the results obtained:

For Tests 1-3 Scouring

the fibres were boiled in soft water (I used rain water) for an hour and then

the fibres were then boiled in a solution of soap (20%) and washing soda (6%) for 2 hours

The above seemed to be a standard method given by several authors. I presumed that rain water would be better than tap water. Our water is very hard and keeping tap water away from the soap seemed like a good idea. Using washing soda seemed appropriate to try and soften/ break down the cellulose plant cell walls. 

For test 1: Mordanting

Alum (25%) and  washing soda (6%) were used. I used the timings I often use for mordanting animal fibres of 45 mins to reach boiling point and 45 minutes to boil. 

For test 2: Mordanting 

Tannin (1%) dissolved in hot water and added to water, then fibres added, timing as in test 1

For test 3 Mordanting

This was time consuming as it was Method 1, followed by method 2, followed by method 1 again. 

The actual dyeing: 

Both mordanted (methods 1-3 above)  fibre types -cotton and hemp were then dyed as along with the mordanted wool. 

Meadowsweet  (gathered and dye extracted from the plant material 6 months previously) and used at 200% dye to dry fibre ratio. 

Image of tests 1-3 and Wool for comparison

I was completely underwhelmed with the plant fibres. However, these results did compare favourably with other available photographs of vegetable fibre ‘dyeing’. I was not satisfied. There had to be a better method, after all  for hundreds of years people must have dyed vegetable fibres with natural dyes. 

More research was needed. I decided I would need to try aluminium acetate as the mordant. I also intended to use soda ash instead of washing soda in the scouring. I had read that ash from a plant bonfire would be good and carefully saved this. However when added to the pan for the scouring the pH was barely alkaline so I abandoned that. 

I had read that  three times as much washing soda was needed as soda ash and having considered  the chemical formulae of each this seemed sensible as washing soda crystals contain a substantial amount of water. On taking the pH this was giving a very alkaline solution. (Note I was going to boil this liquid so I would be extremely careful that it did not splash on me, and not get near my eyes or mouth) either before, during or after the scouring. )

Test 4 and 5 : Scouring

The washing soda (105% yes a huge increase) was added to the pan of warm water and dissolved. The fibres were added. The pan was brought to the boil and boiled for 2 hours. The fibres were cooled in the pan. 

Prior to Mordanting for test 4 and 5  the fibres were soaked in boiled tap water for 2 hours before Scouring - this would soften them. 

Test 4 : Mordanting. 

Aluminium acetate (10%) was dissolved in hot water and then added to hot water in the pan. The fibres were added and left overnight. No additional heating was used.

The fibres were stirred at least every half and hour for the first three or so hours. 

This is the result after dyeing with meadowsweet:

This is much more like it. I was pleased with this result. 

Test 5: Mordanting

Tannin (10%)  was dissolved in hot water and the fibres were added and left for 2 hours. Then the fibres were mordanted as in test 4.

This is the result of test 5. I was disappointed as the dyeing is not even, but I do know some natural dyers prefer this look. 

This is an image of all the fibres together

 

What I have learnt: 

To obtain good results in terms of dyeing with natural dyes for animal (protein) fibres is a labour of love. It is time consuming and needs patience and, in my mind, accuracy to get good and repeatable results. For natural dyeing of plant fibres this is even more true, the added time aspect for plant fibres is significant. 

It is possible to dye vegetable  fibres with natural dyes and get even, saturated colours that are fast. My favourite method is Test  4.  However, I still have a couple of tweaks to make to this method before I am happy and of course I need to try it with more than one dyestuff. 

I would welcome comments from others dyeing plant fibres with natural dyes obtained from plants such as I used the meadowsweet here. 

The Meadowsweet Cushion

This is cushion 2 in the series - being a collection of cushions, all with a story,  to sit on our library 'under stairs' daybed which we have have commissioned by our local brilliant  carpenter known to us as 'Chris the carpenter'.

The post here describes 'the  meadowsweet  cushion'. 

Once I had decided that I would make a variety of cushions I decided that I would do one in hand embroidery. It is years since I did anything like this from scratch but have continued to do bits such as 'mend/ replace' the embroidery on a bag I made from one of my aunt's cushion covers - more about that here. 

This was in another league  as I was not just embroidering over a transfer pattern, I was going to make the design from a photo of meadowsweet in our lane. So there were issues about the size of the design and placement on the cushion. I did not wish to draw a design in pen / pencil that I then stitched over. 

I decided to: 

1. Mark out the 4 quarters of the cushion in tacking stitch and also give an outline frame  so as not to be tempted to take the design too close to the seam  with the back of the cushion. I had already neatened the raw edges of the back and front of the shrunk fabric of the  cushion with the overlocker - this had been preshrunk by washing and ironing damp to avoid creases forming.

2. Sketch the design onto a full size sheet of plain paper and use this to mark the main features on the cushion cover by tacking stitches. 

 

Part of my wish with choosing the meadowsweet was to be able to do lots of French knots to represent the frothiness of the flower heads. My other self imposed 'rule' was that the colours should be the colours of the room, mainly greys and tealish/ light royal  blue but with cream and taupe of the sofa. 

I planned this design for the right of the cushion and with a selected set of embroidery threads I took this little kit with us on our holiday to Teesdale and Cumbria earlier in the year. ( Postcript : the weather was so brilliant that I did much less embroidery that I intended! But who's not to get out and enjoy lovely scenery in lovely weather? ) 

 

So when we were back and  had recovered from the break, I took up the embroidery with increased vigour and used it to keep me awake in the evenings while 'watching' the TV. I was really pleased with how the  meadowsweet flower heads were coming out and I allowed myself to digress from my strict colour scheme to add some olive green for a leaf. This was rather an afterthought. 

One morning - in my quality thinking time in the shower - I had a thought that I could add some of my meadowsweet dyed yarns to the left and the choice of embroidery thread in the dark olive would help to tie the two sides of the cushion together. 

 

I am pleased with the cushion which evolved during the embroidery process and is also another item in my meadowsweet series  from last year's wool week yoked jumper set. 

The Meadowsweet Skirt

The Meadowsweet Skirt

Earlier this year (2016) we had a wonderful holiday in the Hebrides. This included a trip to Isle of Harris, Harris Tweed in Tarbert, Harris. This is a two shop experience. The shop that interested me most what the one containing bolts of material- many bolts of material- and some yarn. We called early in out time on Harris to buy material for our two Ebay sourced chairs. These I planned to recover in Harris Tweed and we had chosen the material. This will be a winter project as the chairs are for our lounge which is currently being decorated ( by us). More about this later. 

So on trip two I bought the 'Meadowsweet' skirt wool and some more grey based tweed. Both were single weaving width - 75cm. Fortunately I had the jumper with me to check the material would work. 

Sample of the material

 

There are 4 colours in the warp and 4 in the weft, some are the same, some are similar - if the 'orange ' in the warp is a pure colour and the weft is based on this but ' 'heathered' - all very clever and worth taking the material apart to find out.

I planned to make another high waisted skirt similar to the one I made with my own woven wool material. However that was in 2012 and some modifications were needed. 

I decided I would try to refit the skirt using a 'full hip adjustment'. This picture from Pinterest intrigued me! 

 

This is not me but a diagram that makes clear what I mean - I hope! 

So although this increased the hip measurement quite a lot I decided to give it a try. However as I can no longer obtain  my pattern making fabric (Fabribaste) I stitched sheets of tracing paper together on the sewing machine! After back and front waist and hip measurements a new pattern was cut and a toile made. 

This fitted well but as usual showed up that my two hips are quite different and I was able to adjust the pattern by taking in the 'bulge' on the right hand side. The dart length and position was much as in the previous skirt. Fitting in this way shows  the advantage to making / adjusting a pattern to get a good fit. 

I made the modification to the paper pattern to save any confusion and decided that I had to mark left and right side on the actual fabric and lining so as not to get confused! 

Cutting out the fabric required great concentration and checking - ' check twice ( or three times) do once'! As the material is only 75 cm wide I had to cut one piece and then match to cut the other below it on the fabric. No room for error here! 

The front and back are single pieces -no centre front to the fold here! 

 

Notice the different colours of tailor tacks for the darts and position of the waist, hip etc. Getting the markings correct is not something to skimp over- experience teaches me this! 

 

As with my black and red dogtooth skirt I decided to apply fine iron on interfacing to prevent any 'bagging' of the skirt. Unusually for me I decided to use a plain lining. I would back the high waist area with firmer interfacing and form the inner with some firm black linen, this means that the lining is attached just below the waist line. This custom tweak seems to work well. 

Having stitched the darts, my next step is to insert the invisible zip. For many years I followed 'standard' practice and did this with an open right side seam. However I was never truly satisfied with the join up of the seam and the zip - my perfectionist streak showing here. A trawl through Google gave me an alternative method, insert the zip after the side seam is stitched. Detailed instructions were available. This gives me a much smoother  finish at the base of the zip. Unfortunately I do not know the person who wrote this but the title is 'Invisble Zipper and lining' 

This is the invisible zip. I like to leave a decent gap at the top of the zip- an opportunity to use a vintage hook and hand made 'eye'. 

 

All went smoothly with the construction, however getting 4 belt loops which matched their position on the skirt and themselves took some concentration. 

As in the red and black skirt I went for the minimum seams so left a slit pleat in the left hand seam below the zip. I added a button from my vintage button collection but finding one that was brown based was much more challenging than a black based one! This is interesting to me as getting brown dyes is easier than black dyes so I would have thought more brown based buttons were available. There is always something to think about, learn and research further. 

On the final 'try on' I was really pleased with the look. The full hip adjustment was a real success and the back fitment ( I have a really hollow back) was good. However, it appeared that the front  section of the side vent was longer than the back. The fabric at the back and  front matched exactly at the lower hem level and where they left the button so this was a puzzle. I had checked the position of the bottom really carefully as I mitred the side vent and bottom hem junctions. So I needed to sleep on this and work out what had gone wrong in the construction. We are talking less than 5 mm here but to a sewer's eye this IS noticeable. 

 

On sleeping on this all I could think was the beating down of the fabric during the weaving was not exactly the same. So I would try to correct it with steaming and a good tug on one and ease up on the other side. This did the trick. 

The finished skirt - I will try and get a picture of me wearing it ( which looks even better) 

 

 With the meadowsweet jumper ( minus the belt! ) 

 

Crofthoose Hat for Shetland Wool Week

So with the book cover finished then I could turn to the Shetland Wool Week, Crofthoose Hat. 

I really loved this pattern when I saw it but it wasn't until I had the meadowsweet dyed colours together did I realise that they would look good as the houses, but that I would knit the background using one colour, not two as Ella had suggested. 

 

I have knitted the body of this hat with the help of my punch card knitting machine. The pattern designed by Ella Gordon (1) had a widthways repeat of 12 stitches so this was easily convertible to machine knitting - each punchcard  width gives instructions to 24 stitches. 

I had converted the tension given for the patten  and used the stitch and row count given to work out the size of the hat. This would be too big for me - a common problem with hats for me. I must have a very small head! So by using the stitches suggested and the rows suggested, the crofthouse design would work perfectly and the hat would be smaller and it is likely it would fit! 

I knitted the crofthouse part on the knitting machine with waste yarn at the top and bottom. 

I picked up the waste yarn first at the bottom using two needles and worked this in corrugated rib worked in reverse, ie purling on the 'right' side to give the purl ridges in dark olive. I worked single rows of the contrast colours to do the stitches between. I then fastened off this rib with a very stretchy cast off. As it turned out this ribbed section is my favourite section of the hat. 

 

Having completed this then I was able to pick up the stitches from the waste knitting at the top of the Crofthoose section and knit the crown on a circular needle. I used all 6 contrast colours of the meadowsweet jumper yoke and paired them as effectively as I could. 

 

Not long to when I can wear it now, with the coordinating yoked jumper and then also using my crofthoose covered journal.

The look will be  completed by a Harris Tweed skirt I have been making to remind me of my holiday on the Hebrides too. More about the skirt later. 

See The Shetland Wool week web page for the pattern 

Crofthoose book cover in meadowsweet dyed yarn

Yesterday was the day for the Diss Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Challenge to be presented at the meeting. 

This year it was a lovely title - book cover! But why is it always a challenge that I complete at the last minute. Well, I did have a whole day to spare this year! 

 

I have been collecting ideas for the book challenge ever since the title was announced about a year ago. I decided I wanted a functional book that I would use often. I had thought about making a 'quiet' book for my 3 year old grandson. His elder brother inherited his father's ( our son) and I thought - well still think- it would be great to do a different one for Isaac. However, I didn't want to do just the cover for the challenge and haven't factored in enough time this year to do the whole book. It is still on my 'to do' list. 

This was not the only challenge I had on my mind. I need to knit this year's Shetland Wool Week hat.  Two years ago I used colours of seaweed from Skaw beach Unst (numerous  posts of Aug to Sept 2014) as inspiration to naturally dye my own Shetland  fleece (from  Jamieson and Smith) spun wool. The hat got lots of comments and in fact by sheer chance was shown on the front page of The Shetland Times newspaper! So I have something to live up to. I could not get any inspiration for an original hat. I loved this year's design - crofthouses by the patron Ella Gordon.(1) 

As I finished the Meadowsweet jumper I had inspiration for both the hat and the book. I would knit the hat and the book with meadowsweet dyed yarn, then I would have a matching jumper and hat to be worn during Shetland Wool Week and a notebook to match. These would all have their story which is what I love about the things I make. 

But this gave me a problem. I had only used  30 g of the separate colours for the yoke and although I thought it unlikely that all the remaining yarn would be used up by the hat I wasn't sure. ( More about the hat in a later post!) so I had to knit the hat first and manage to fit in making the book cover too. 

I decided I would make a knitted cover for an A6 sized notebook. This provided me with an opportunity to stretch my brain mathematically. So working from a tension square I had to work out how many crofthouses would fit across the book and how many repeats would work for the vertical. I didn't want any  crofthouses that were roofless. 

While I was waiting to finish knitting the hat I did fit in making a calico book sleeve to attach the book cover to. Fortunately a few years ago I made a cochineal book cover for an A6 book, so I had already worked out the techniques needed and the order of construction. 

The knitting was completed with the aid of a punchcard knitting machine in the same colour combinations as the hat. This piece of knitting needed blocking and drying before the next stages. These penultimate two stages, in my mind are crucial in any project - the weaving in of ends invisibly on the back and the edging details. 

It is much neater to split the yarn into the separate plies to hide in the knitting. It takes longer but the finished effect is easier. One of the yellow meadowsweet plies has been woven in here:

 

Both the bottom and top of the piece had 'waste knitting' to aid in picking up the stitches. I had employed the reverse garter stitch technique before and was happy with this again here. I use the term ' reverse' garter stitch because ordinary garter stitch with colour changes like this would show the colour changing row on the 'right' side of the piece. So some more planning needed to get the desired result. 

Finally the book cover was complete, with 24 hours to spare! 

I was glad I waited for inspiration for the book cover as I absolutely love the result, but I am determined to use it and enjoy it. 

 

One of the things I really like about MK is the uniformity of the stitches. However, MK makes knitting different and not easier! 

(1) Ella Gordon is Patron of Shetland Wool Week 2016. More about Ella and the pattern can be found on their website. 

The Meadowsweet Jumper - at last

  

It is finished ... and  more importantly I love it. 

 

It has taken me a year - only last week I had a reminder from Facebook with a picture of the yarn dyeing in the pan. At that stage I just loved the colour of the meadowsweet. Then I had the idea that I would see what others colours I could obtain by using additives and overdyeing. So I dyed a trial set of colours and then from that I had the thought of doing a Shetland Yoked  jumper. I adjusted the colours slightly. 

Then I had to work out how much of each yoke colour I needed. From reading several yoked patterns I made a decision and dyed the colours, these can be seen on the blog post of 3 May 2016.

The next problem was the actual yoked jumper pattern. I wanted to knit the main parts using my knitting machine and then work the yoke stitches by hand. This is the way many yoked jumpers were knitted in Shetland in the past. I decided I would pick up the stitches for the yoke rather than graft a completed yoke to the jumper. So this gave me a number of challenges - matching the machine stitch size and hand knitting needle size and also having a number of stitches from the knitting machine that would marry up with the number of stitches required for the yoke pattern repeat. As it turned out I drafted my own pattern for the shapes needed and used a traditional pattern for the yoke with some variations.  All these challenges meant I definitely needed to knit a trial  jumper. More with pictures on blogpost of 10 Jan 16.

Once the trial  jumper was complete, it fitted well. The yoke 'sat' well and all in all it couldn't have gone any better. I got lots of compliments when I wore it and tried to stop myself saying - 'it's only a practice'! Machine knitters - or is it knitters in general- seem to find it hard to accept praise for what they do. Even though I know how difficult it is to achieve what you set out to achieve by machine knitting! It is a complicated activity but when you get it right the results can be stunning. It is a pity there are still knitting machines lurking in lofts and under beds because people perceived the skill too difficult and gave up.  So I was then at the stage of having the dyed yarn and the assurance that the pattern I had devised would fit me and be suitable for the task.  

So time to start the meadowsweet jumper. Although the yarn was different from the trial jumper, having knitted tension squares I was convinced the minor differences were not substantial and hence the number of yoke stitches could be the same. Headache one over. 

My plan was to knit the back, front and sleeves before we went on holiday to the Hebrides in June, then during the holiday I would knit the yoke. Well I achieved the first aim and took the knitted and steamed pieces with me. These were joined just at the start of each sleeve back and front. However, the thought that I could knit the yoke when I was away was wrong - too much to see and do. I did pick up the stitches for the yoked and get the stitches sitting right. The centre front and back needed a motif centred there, I needed the correct number of stitches on the needle and the transition to the yoke needed to be the best I could make it. 

Knitting the yoke was very enjoyable, changing the colours and seeing the pattern build up I was really pleased with my choice of colours. I tried the jumper on and the fit over the shoulders was good, all was looking promising. 

The yoke colours

 

The one thing I wanted to change from the brown practice jumper was the neck. I felt it should be higher and so decided to increase the depth of the rib. This led to another problem- getting the jumper over my head. This meant I investigated a number of rib cast-offs and decided upon a very stretchy one which worked well. 

So then there was the blocking of the yoke. I did this with a combination of cold water spray, a silk organza pressing cloth and a steam iron. I then put the jumper  on my body duplicate ensuring that the damp wool was not touching the fabric of the body duplicate. The jumper dried for 24 hours, first outside on a warm summer's  day breeze, then overnight. 

Jumper drying on the body duplicate

 

Now it was time to join the body and sleeve seams. My first preference is to use my normal sewing machine on a small stretch stitch, but I do join the welts by hand starting in the middle of the welt and parking enough wool to use in each direction. 

Using the length of wool left from the cast off never gives such a good neat result. This can be completed so that the join is virtually invisible.

Welt joined by hand

 

Ends need weaving in and my aim is to have the inside as neat as the outside. Splitting the ends into their remaining plies doubles or trebles the work but is worth it in my view. 

So it was  finished, but I was not happy with the hand knitting above the yoke. The stitches were too loose and did not suit my perfectionist streak. So I took it  back to the top of the yoke and the following five attempts were made to give a better finish:

1.      Double thickness yarn – too thick

2.      Knitting two yarns separately as in fair isle – this matched the thickness of the fair isle but was untidy

3.      Use  a smaller needle size – big improvement but still not perfect

4.      Use a smaller needles size and recalculate the decreases so that they are 3 tog over a centre stitch and so much neater.

So at the fifth attempt I had the jumper I wished for. This latter ‘messing around’ could have been avoided if I had done trials before hand. It all seemed to work so well with the brown jumper. This was because the brown disguised the decreases compared to the meadowsweet colour and there were far fewer decreases as I left a wider neck. 

 

Yet another case of perfect planning gives the best outcome! Or ‘fail to plan means plan to fail’. This is the polite version of it….

Meadowsweet dyed yarn and a yoked jumper

The yoked jumper ( post of 10 Jan 16) is very comfortable to wear. I now need to do some samples in the yarn for the meadowsweet jumper if I am to have it finished for the autumn. (Natural Dyeing life gets in the way during the summer months with me!).
I see that although I posted hanks of the yarn I dyed last summer I never posted the finished balls. So here they are.

top row:meadowsweet on its own
middle row : madder and madder overdye on meadowsweet
bottom row : meadowsweet with iron; meadowsweet with more iron: meadowsweet with tin

(If you wish to read more about these then press the label for meadowsweet on the right)

My plan is to knit the same pattern for the yoke as I did with the practice jumper if the stitch numbers work out.

Day 5 Creativity - what's not to love about Natural Dyeing

 

I decided that yesterday's post would be the last on Natural Dyeing for a while. However, today has seen such wonderful colours appear that I am not sticking to that.

I decided that I wanted to keep as much as I could of the meadowsweet dyeing so went for the fair isle yoked jumper option. I plan to do the traditional star and tree Shetland version if the stitches work out..... so I need main plus 5 colours. Last night I worked out a bit of a plan for the five colours, and this morning started on my quest. I may be tight for wool for the main part so decided to mordant 50 g more and dye that with madder as it will be a colour that will lift the meadowsweet colour and give me another 30 g for the main part of the jumper.

So this is what I have got by using additives:
Lighter green - iron
Darker green - more iron
Coral - madder on its own
Golden brown - madder over dyeing the meadowsweet
Bright gold - tin

 

(Apologies the skeins have not been re skeined so the washing ties are still in them, hope this is not too distracting)

This is what I just love, having decided on a colour range, using my local meadowsweet dyed yarn ( except in one case) I have a collection of gorgeous strong colours all by Natural Dyeing.

I will so enjoy making and wearing this jumper knowing that it is British Wool and dyed from meadowsweet a few hundred yards from my house. Of course, in addition the meadowsweet are due to be cut back as soon as the farmer is not harvesting the corn and has time to clear his ditches.

Quite a good example of sustainable textiles I think. All the waste dyestuff has gone on the garden to water the plants and the heated meadowsweet residue will be composted. The additives do contain metal salts but by careful calculation very little is left in the dyepot.

Now do I go and gather more meadowsweet and dye the rest of the other cone of cream yarn so I can weave the scarf I intended to do initially?

Day 4 Creativity - Dyeing with Meadowsweet- part two

 

 

This morning I decided to dry all 500 g worth of dyed skeins. This is to give me more time to decide on the project for them. Usually I leave the skeins wet when using additives.

So having changed my mind completely from the woven scarf in meadowsweet and meadowsweet and iron I am still thinking of a knitting project.

The skeins look like this :
The lighter one has tin additive
The dark green one has iron additive - rather a lot
The darker meadowsweet has copper additive.
The bigger skein ( background ) is meadowsweet on its own.
In real life the meadowsweet skein has a definite greeny tone to it.



Part of the reason for drying them was to compare the skeins. I dyed 2 lots of 200g and the the remaining 127 g with some handspun yarn with it - this was interesting and I'll explain further on.

I dyed one lot of 200g in an aluminium pan and one in an enamel pan but with EXACTLY 400 g of meadowsweet. The enamel pan took ages to get to boiling point and then I forgot it at lunch time so the yarn was in for quite a bit longer BUT the colours of both sets are identical. This amazes me. One might think the meadowsweet had reached its capacity for reacting with the dye. However, I think not as the separate 127 g is definitely a deeper dye. I weighed the total amount of yarn in the pot and doubled this for dyestuff so I think it must be due to the hand spun yarn not taking up so much of the dye for its mass compared to commercial yarn. I find this perfectly normal for all sorts of reasons. I also included a small sample of non scoured, non mordanted yarn to show how essential it is to scour yarn well and mordant thoroughly. This is the skein on the right. The odd skeins, ie the non commercial cone, are much browner in colour – again difficult to get right here but I have done my best. (I do hate it when the ipad think for me!!)

 

The ‘odd skeins’ – the one on the right is the non scoured, non mordanted one ! (Apologies for the lack of clarity in the picture but it’s the colour that matters in this context)

So back to my choice…… At the moment I am pondering on knitting a yoked sweater in meadowsweet colour with a fair isle yoke - using 4/5 yet to be dyed yarns using the exhaust dye and additives. I have tried the yarn 'on my front' to see if the meadowsweet colour will be good for me as a sweater - answer is 'yes'.

Or, whether to change more of the meadowsweet yarn into other colours using additives and knit a fair isle jumper.

I intend to knit either jumper on the knitting machine - once I have designed a pattern! But I think I have 2/3 days to make my choice as I want to you the dye exhaust at its best.

What a lovely choice to have to make!!!!

(Apologies, no idea why the text size has a mind of its own today!)

 

Day 3 Creativity: Dyeing with Meadowsweet - part one

I love Natural Dyeing and I love my textile work to have a story to tell. Now that we live 'in the middle of nowhere' (otherwise 'the country'- Norfolk in fact), I have my own source of many dye plants within walking distance. One of my favourite natural dyes is Meadowsweet and the ditches down our lane are full of it just now.

You can see it is a glorious place to live – but more importantly you can just spot the meadowsweet.

 

A better view of the meadowsweet

 

If all goes to plan I intend to weave a scarf in 2 colours. On its own Meadowsweet will give a greeny mustardy yellow. I intend to dye half the wool again using iron as additive to give a more greeny hue. Natural dyes 'go' together and I like to dye a family of colours from the original dye bath.

All this needs lots of planning. I ordered a 500g cone of natural coloured British Wool - approx 4 ply weight if you are a knitter! Then this needed to be made into skeins, ready for the dyeing.

Once skeined, the wool needed scouring and mordanting to allow it to accept the dye more evenly.

Lots of skeins – I decided to do 50g skeins

When this preparation is done it's time to get the dyestuff so I can use if fresh. I've decided to dye at 200% ( compared to weight of dry wool) so that's quite a lot of meadowsweet. However, compared to the amount in the ditches it is insignificant,  only the tops are needed not the roots and very soon the farmer will clean out the ditches and the wonderful meadowsweet will be gone.

So the penultimate stage is to extract the dye from the meadowsweet. This involved chopping the meadowsweet & boiling it up - a super activity for a sunny day (Sunday) interspersed with deadheading some plants! For good measure I left the dyestuff in the water until Tuesday. It was meant to be Monday but I ran out of time yesterday.

Meadowsweet soaking in water

So now for the dyeing in the strained dye. The dye and the yarn was brought to the boil slowly and then left simmering for about 45 minutes. The dye liquor will be  kept and could be used again as an exhaust dye to get a lighter meadowsweet colour. However I will split up the exhaust dye and use it as a base for some additives.

 So I’ve had a long day today. The camping gas stove ( about 30 years old) decided to play up – flames from the knobs so had to give up with that. So, I have just been using the electric ‘dyeing’ double hob outside. So it’s taken twice as long. However, all the yarn is dyed with  meadowsweet ands its resting in rinse water. I have done 2 additional sorts of samples as well :

1.      Using different yarns – mainly hand spun, including one with no scouring or mordanting

2.      Samples of overdyeing the meadowsweet dyed yarn with solutions of tin, iron and copper.

These samples are drying – results tomorrow. All looking even better than hoped for.

What was going to be a two colour woven scarf, might just be a fair isle jumper…..