Hollyhock 2

My experiments with Hollyhock flowers continue. This time a “solar” dye technique, using variations of indoor temperatures to mimick summer.

Rainwater, vinegar, pH 4. 35 g yarn, 10 g dry flowers. Left on top of fireplace 2 days. I shook it up once in a while when taking photos of the progress. Shelf temp. 60-65 C when fired up, 40-45 C on the top of stove (where I let it remain), 15 C in the morning.

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30 minutes – 3 hours – 24 hours

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2 days
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compared to first batch which have faded a bit while in the cupboard…

Same procedure, pH 6-7 (my strips are not super accurate) yielded pretty much the same shade, so I took the remains of the dyebath, put in ammonia until it was way up (11+, it takes only drops….), then dunked it for a minute. Thought I might as well compare it to the “boiled green”. There are some strands that had not as much dip as the rest, they turned blue. I left them as such, for science. 😉

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Next, both exhausts mixed and upped to pH 8, 2 days on stove. As you change the pH the dyebath pretty much changes to the colour you’ll get on the yarn, how’s that for an indicator? I had fun adding ammonia to get green, then vinegar water to make it rosy again with the last bit of dyebath before I poured it out.

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This skein is incredibly hard to photograph to the exact shade – as close as I got today in the snow.
flash photo
flash photo – always a bit brighter that life…

As you can see however, once I took it out I didn’t quite get the steel blue (left jar below) or the baby blue of the strands on the previous skein, may have left it in there too long and it got too alkaline. A safer bet if you want sky blue may be to do a neutral 6-7 pH lavender then a dip in pH 8. Maybe it takes even less to turn it.

I think I’m going to have to try and get some dark red flowers and see if they give a more rosy warm shade. I thought the acid one would be, given the heather rosy tint I got on the first project with a vinegar afterdip – maybe afterdips are different, maybe if was the temperature? As you can see the dyebath starts out very pink, then to turn purple over time. Could be a completely cold dye procedure would be different yet again. Or maybe I need to push the acid lower than 4 if we have green on the opposite end, then blue, purple in the middle and ?

Join us next week in the quest for pink, 2 more jars in this series still cooking… I’m thinking that perhaps the lavender skein was closer to neutral pH, since it was identical to the neutral one, so I’ll have to conduct another test with the exhaust from the red jar below. Meaning, I need to mordant more yarn to get reliable comparisons, meaning y’all need to wait for a bit.

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In the meantime, I’ve also mordanted the rest of my Dorset fleeces in tin/alum/CoT, about 650 g. So look out for “Hollyhock 3”. Or possibly 4.

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Stokroser 2

Nye eksperimenter, denne gang farvet ved stuetemperatur, dvs. jeg forsøgte at kopiere solfarvning ved at stille glassene på brændeovnen, det giver 40-45 grader om dagen og ca. 15 om natten. 2 døgn hver ved pH 3, 6 og 8. Den mellemste lignede grangiveligt den første, så den fik et meget basisk dyp til sidst og blev en flot grøn. Spørgsmålet er, om jeg har fejlmålt pH værdien på det første fed, og det måske var nærmere neutral, dette er jeg i gang med at teste….

Jeg har brugt regnvand, men nu hvor vi har fået frost er jeg nok nødt til at bruge vandhanen, selvom det evt. godt kan give et mere gråligt resultat at dømme fra første test.

Næste test er dels tinbejset, dels helt “koldt” bad uden ovn og, når jeg får dyrket nogen, mørkerøde blomster i stedet for sort-violette. Noget tyder dog på at det er pH værdien som er afgørende, så jeg er i gang med næste test i ren eddike.

27 tanker om “Hollyhock 2

  1. Kan godt se og læse at du er en øvet plantefarver ! Spændende forsøg, du kaster dig ud i. Din nysgerrighed er smittende.
    Og hvilke lækre farver der kommer ud af det. Har du planer for dine garner? eller må du bare prøve at lege med farver og senere dukker, der måske ideer op til hvad du skal bruge alle disse skønne garner til ?

    1. Så længe jeg eksperimenterer, bruger jeg blot små fed på 33 g af et billigt uldgarn. Jeg er faktisk stadig på begynderstadiet, og har kun prøvet hver plante én eller få gange, men når jeg går i gang med et projekt har jeg en tendens til at lave en voldsom mængde research, jeg skal bare vide DET HELE. Så mine teoretiske base er nok mere solid en min praktiske erfaring, og så gør jeg mig jo nogen tekniske tanker undervejs også.
      Mine små fed vil nok blive brugt til fx. små tæpper eller filtede objekter (jeg mangler et par nålepuder), og så gemmer jeg dem indtil videre simpelthen for at se hvor meget farve de taber på et år eller to. Men jeg ville gerne finde en lidt bedre garnbase eller to så jeg kan farve større mængder og bruge til beklædning. Men nu må vi se, hvor vejen fører hen.

      1. Ok. Ret spændende er det i hvert tilfælde! Og ret så fornuftigt ikke at kaste enorme mængder af dyrt uldgarn i farvebadet, før du ved om det er helt ok. Dine forsøg virker yderst velovervejet og gennemtænkte 🙂
        Den ene gang jeg prøvede at plantefarve, farvede alle mulige farver. jeg strikkede en sweater til mit yngste barn af det garn. Jeg synes den var SÅ smuk 🙂

        1. Naturfarverne passer på en eller anden måde altid sammen, næsten lige meget hvad man sætter sammen, det er ret fantastisk. Jeg har en hel kasse fuld af garn som jeg farvede i 2011, i 2012 blev det desværre ikke til ret meget.

  2. Der er dog nogle fantastiske farver. Har du nogen anelse om, hvor lys- og vaskeægte de er? Alle mine diverse farveprøver bliver til ggrydelapper i glatstrikkede dominotern – egen opskrift modificeret efter de oprindelige. Så kan jeg glæde mig over farverne, teste holdbarheden og bruge alle de små stumper på en gang.

    1. Nej, det er første gang jeg bruger stokroser, så jeg laver nok en lystest en gang i foråret. Og ellers gemmer jeg dem indtil videre mindst et år i en kasse, for nogen farver blegner allerede der. Grydelapper er faktisk også på min todo liste!

  3. YES!!!!! This is awesome. I am jumping up and down. Not literally, but definitely on the inside. Question: did you measure the pH before you heated it up on the stove or when it was hot? That shift in temp will definitely change the pH in my experience. So will time. This is fascinating. Beautiful results. Can’t wait to see more. This, together with what I’m learning about fermentation dyeing, is really starting to sway my interests—at least for certain dyestuffs.

    1. I didn’t keep measuring the pH during the temperature swings, no, but at first it didn’t change. Plants in themselves can probably alter it too. I’ll go measure the ones I haven’t emptied yet. I need to get better strips until I can afford a digital thingamabob…. Haven’t read Ravelry in a while btw and just came upon your link to Lynx today, definitely a keeper. The french ones – tant pis, some other time. 😉

  4. I agree with Dre, it’s an interesting and exciting dye and I just love those colours. Bluey-green is not a colour you often get from a single natural dye, so it’s definitely something special. I wonder how light fast it is?

    1. yes, it’s an interesting way to get green, so I’ll make sure to post when I know how the yarn holds up to washing and sunbathing.

  5. This process takes real persistence I can see! Lots of waiting and decisions based on results and then more waiting and watching. I take my hat off to you Pia!

    1. 🙂 Well – at least I get to do other fun things while I wait. And dyeing on the woodstove also means I don’t accidentally boil things because I forget to watch them (apparently I can’t HEAR it until it’s too late. Especially not with my headset on listening to a podcast or TEDtalk 😉 )

  6. How cool. I didn’t understand half of what you are talking about 😉 (I just knit with the stuff) but the colors you got are beautiful!

  7. I love this. I am really curious to know if you attain the pink by going more acidic. I don’t have the black hollyhocks growing now – but I am going to get the seeds this year to start so I can have them for next year now that I am seeing what you are getting with them. Love it!!

    1. I did get pink – post coming later this week – but it’s very, very unstable. Both to pH and temperature, even after it’s out of the dyebath. It really wants to turn to purple! So we’ll see what happens when I wash it.

      1. I am wondering if the neutral pH of the water will work to make it more alkaline and move it toward the blue tone. I am thinking of the hibiscus in my front yard. My house has both pink and blue in it. If I want the hibiscus to be blue one year I make the ground around it very alkaline. If I want it to be pink I make it very acidic. My mind is wondering if it is possible to make the rinses more acidic.

  8. Thank you, Pia! What a wonderful mine of info your blog is. Your experiments with the pH are fascinating. I am not so experienced with wool but your projects are inspiring. You are most generous to report them so carefully. I am learning from that, too.

    A bientot!

    Wendy

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