Tag: mordant

Cloths part 2

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Time to open the rest of the packages from August 14th. The first package was opened on August 21st and now awaiting further experiments…

The sheet on the right was previously washed with soda, cooked with sumak leaves and was soaking in water with iron while rolled up with celandine. The pillow case similar although no tannin before but soaking in water with oak leaves while printing.

Discoveries so far:

  1. Oak leaves = nice clear prints
  2. yellow flowers = vague yellow blotches
  3. Sage leaves = absolutely nothing. Maybe a pale shade of yellow?
  4. Celandine leaves in a heap = again, turns brown when sitting too long
  5. Put cloth in bucket of whatever = only the outside layer takes any colour at all.
  6. My mystery cloth just lost whatever I put on it previously and didn’t take anything from the leaves it had been rolled up with.

None of these cotton rags were properly mordanted, which is the next process I’ll be trying to see what the difference is. Tannin and aluminium acetate, some with sea water and aluminium. Some with iron as well, before or after. But I probably won’t get to actually dyeing them until next summer. Rhubarb leaves will be on the menu as well.

Another set is brewing – hoping for prints from lupine leaves among other things.

Funny thing though, the celandine dyed sheet is brown – but when put into water again, the water turns yellow.

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Plantefarvning på stof

Tid til at åbne de sidste pakker jeg præparerede d. 14. august. Den første omtalte jeg d. 21. august, den er nu tør og afventer yderligere eksperimenter på et eller andet tidspunkt.

Der kom ikke sÃ¥ meget ud af det, svaleurt giver stadig brun ved langtidsfarvning og kun egebladene lavede print pÃ¥ stoffet. Det ene stykke stof mistede de print det havde inden og er nu næsten “rent”! Jeg ved ikke helt hvad det er lavet af, det er en slags kanvas og virker ikke syntetisk, mÃ¥ske hør?

Solar silk

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My first venture into solar dyeing, this grey, cold, miserable summer, was a couple of jars with silk and dye from Dyer’s Chamomile.

We did get one week of warm and sunny, but I didn’t actually think of moving my jars into the greenhouse until afternoon on the last day… Pretty typical of me.

After about a month I pulled it out, since nothing much seemed to be happening. (forgot to register, sorry)

I didn’t get any orange from the Tinctoria this time, but not necessarily due to temperature, but rather the fact that I was using 1/1 dyestuff to fiber this time as opposed to 3/1 last time. Bit of a shame since I wanted the orange shade as part of the silk project. So I fixed it by adding a handful of frosen coreopsis to some of the silk and a pot of hot water.

There wasn’t much difference in colour in the copper mordanted silk compared to the alum mordanted, so since I needed olive for my spinning project I dunked it in my horse shoe bucket. Voila presto!

Unfortunately I ran into another problem with the silk. I’d used two different batches, and the bit that I’d been gifted in a swap was really, really odd even as I soaked it before dyeing. Didn’t get wet properly, didn’t “float” and smelled odd. Did I pay attention? Nooooo… So what happend to that portion was, after it’s all dry and ready, the silk was completely brittle and rough to the touch. I can tear the fibres into short, short bits and it just feels unpleasant even after a wash. Not going to spin it. At first I thought it was the iron, but when half the coreopsis dyed silk ended up the same and the other half didn’t I guess it has to be the silk itself.

So I had to take some more of the yellow, that was supposed to stay yellow, and dunk that in iron to get the greenish tint, and then I gave up and acid dyed a new piece for orange. Easy to spot in the crowd I think, but probably won’t be noticed once they’re blended.

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Koldfarvet silke

Ikke helt SOLfarvet, eftersom vi ikke har haft så meget af den, i hvert fald ikke sommertemperatur, men dog farvet uden opvarmning af fibrene. De stod i glas ca. en måned, men der skete ikke rigtig den store udvikling de sidste par uger. Farvebadet er gåseurt, det ene glas med kobberbejset silke.

Jeg fik ikke orange denne gang, formentlig pga mindre plantemasse pr. fiber, ca. 1/1. Kobberglasset var en ret mørk gul, men ikke den grønlige farve jeg skulle bruge, sÃ¥ den kom lige et dyp i min hesteskospand og sÃ¥ blev det ellers oliven pÃ¥ nul komma fem. Orange fik jeg ved at lige opvarme en hÃ¥ndfuld nedfrosset skønhedsøje – coreopsis tinctoria og putte noget af det gule silke i.

Desværre viste den ene portion silke sig at være mere end underlig, så både den grønne og det meste af den orange er fuldstændig sprø og ru. Jeg kan trække fibrene over i korte, korte stykker helt uden at anstrenge mig. Silken var også anderledes allerede da jeg havde det i blød før farvningen, men jeg havde ikke regnet med det ville gå så galt.

Så jeg var nødt til at tage lidt af det gule og dyppe i jern igen, og for at have nok til mit projekt syrefarvede jeg så lige en portion orange. Jeg håber den ikke skiller sig ligeså meget ud når de bliver blandet.

Cloths part 1

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Well, part 3 really. Since I already showed off some cloths from last year and blabbed about the new project in another post.

So, I made notes. I did not number those notes and match them with my buckets however…. lahdeedahh. Some I remember from description, but…

I was going to leave them all there FOREVER, but in less than a week some had taken on A LOT of colour in the fabric itself, the print part I couldn’t see of course. What to do? Open or leave them?! ARGH!

Ok, so I opened ONE. Seven days in. Hot weather (finally). And did recognize it after opening, so the registration is back on track.

This cloth had previously been soaked in red wine with a horse shoe on top. Then bundled with tansy, daylilies, something sunflower like and sage. Cold water bucket. I also poured in some exhaust from the tansy test halfway through, I think that’s what’s giving the olive green with the iron and also being the outer layers of the package. There goes my theory about tansy not reacting with iron!

I learned that you don’t get clear plant prints when submerging the cloth in fluid. So next thing would be add flowers to damp cloth and then not to use more water. I should probably go read my book….

In the mean time I’ve been cooking the rest of my cottons in tannins and aluminium acetate. So they should be ready for further experimentation. Next up if I come across old bedsheets etc. will be seawater and milk, and I’ve got some dried sumac bark from last year. I’ve also aquired some texts on dyeing with clay and rust among other things, can’t wait to dive into them. Bring on winter, see if I care! (Yeah, I said that last year too and spent the entire winter being sick = no crafting, but I’m not planning on a repeat). Silk fabrics, cellulose fiber yarns – lots to try! As well as trying out the procedure on wools for comparison with ordinary mordants. There’s no end to the experiments, somebody find me a huge grant?! 😀

Funny how boiled oak leaves left to steep for a few days, look and smell JUST like black tea. So I wonder if that’s the smell of tannic acid? I didn’t have a sip though 😉

 

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Plantefarvning på stof

Kort fortalt, jeg tester alle mulige måder at få plantefarve til at hæfte på bomuld. Garvesyre fra rødvin, egeblade, bark, aluminiumsulfat, havvand, mælk, jernopløsning. Første test var 4 forskellige spande med blomster og salvie rullet ind i lagner og puttet i spande i drivhuset.

Efter en uge hev jeg første bundt op og har bl.a. lært at man ikke fÃ¥r tydelige print af blomsterne ved at have stoffet liggende i væske, der skal man nok sarte med fugtigt stof og sÃ¥ snøre blomsterne ind og lade være. Jeg kunne ogsÃ¥ studere lidt først, men det er typisk mig at bare prøve noget. Jeg burde nok tage og fÃ¥ læst min bog om emnet! Jeg har ogsÃ¥ fÃ¥et fat i nogen e-bøger om at farve med ler, rust og andet sjovt. Vinteren kan bare komme an og gerne med en del mindre sygdom end den sidste, hvor jeg sagde det samme og sÃ¥ blev det bare til nul spinding! 🙁

Jeg skal ogsÃ¥ have spundet nogen forskellige plantefibre og teste med dem, mÃ¥ske silkestof? Nogen som vil donere noget kedeligt hvidt bomuldsgarn? 😉

Kogte egeblade som har trukket et par dage lugter fuldstændig som og ligner sort the. Gad vide om det simpelthen er garvesyre der lugter sÃ¥dan? Jeg smagte dog ikke pÃ¥ det….

Jeg lader stoffet tørre mellem hver behandling, jeg håber det sætter sig og ikke bliver vasket ud i næste omgang, men de kloge påstår jo at det kan lade sig gøre på den måde.

Teensy tansy tests

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1400 g Tanacetum vulgare. Boil, leave for 3 days due to stupor.

First, simmer one mordanted skein for 20 minutes. VERY sunny. More so than the photo below shows (1st skein on the left).

Then enter 2 more skeins + some unmordanted fleece. Take out yarns after half an hour, put one in ammonia soak.

Enter two mystery skeins, previously dyed a dull grey-yellow last year. Leave in fleece. Simmer an hour, then cool in the pot.

Quick iron dip seemed to do nothing much (unlike the Dyer’s chamomile for instance, which just needs a quick dip to turn the yarn olive green) so that’s the skein that had an alkaline modifier. You could leave the ammonia in the yarn for an even deeper bronze, but it’s not good for the wool, so I didn’t, and most of it rinsed out.

CORRECTION AUGUST 21st: After unwrapping one of my cloth experiments, I can say that tansy does react with iron giving a strong olive. In this case however the iron was in the cloth first, i.e. as a mordant, then tansy cold dye poured on as an afterthought. Noteworthy I think!

The mystery skeins were slightly altered, quite greenish. Despite the large amount of dyestuff to yarn, I felt the pot was exhausted, seems like the first skein sucked up all the good stuff. One could use this for a series of yarns from dark to pale by entering one skein at a time and/or leaving in for different amounts of time. I can’t help thinking that a 1:1 dye ratio would give a rather dull shade…

mystery skeins before

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Rejnfan

En lille hurtig test med stor plantemængde i forhold til garn – i alt 5 nøgler á 35 g + en hÃ¥ndfuld uld. Suffolk tror jeg. 1400 g blomster, kogt en time, derefter trukket 3-4 dage.

Først kom jeg 1 bejset bundt i og simrede ca. 20 minutter, hvorefter det var meget mørkt og solgult (mere end på billedet).

Så puttede jeg to mere i, samt en håndfuld vasket men ubejset uld. De fik nok en halv time, det ene dyppede jeg i jern uden at der skete noget, så i stedet kom det i ammoniakbad, hvilket gav en dyb bronze farve. Når man skyller mister man lidt af gløden, men det er jo ikke så godt for uld at være basisk, så det må jeg leve med. Men muligheden foreligger hvis man ønsker.

RETTELSE: efter at have pakket en af mine stofpakker op, kan jeg se at hvis man bruger jern FØRST, som bejse, så giver rejfan faktisk en kraftig oliven/jægergrøn farve!

Ulden lod jeg ligge og puttede så to kedelige brungule fed i, som jeg ikke kan huske hvad de er farvet med. De blev noget grønlige af den tur, absolut forbedrede, og sjovt nok mere ens end da de kom i. De fik en time + afkøling.

Og så syntes jeg farvebadet så lidt svagt ud, det første fed må virkelig have suget til sig af farvestofferne. Det kan man jo udnytte netop til at skabe en gradueret skala af gul fra kraftig til bleg. Hvor gult det bliver når man bruger 1:1 plante og garn fik jeg ikke afprøvet, men jeg tror måske jeg vil holde mig til den kraftige suppe hvis der skal være lidt pang.

Vidste du, at man kan kommentere min blog uden at være wordpress medlem? Bare udfyld navn er nok. Det er så hyggeligt med dialog fremfor monolog!

Birch – birk

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Birch leaves are abundant in the Scandinavian countries and were considered poor man’s dye because while it’s relatively lightfast, it does fade – and boy did poor people use and abuse their few sets of clothes in those days! But – no worries. They just re-dyed it every summer, voila, good for another season. (What I don’t understand is how they could wear them for more than a season, my hardworking clothes get worn out in a heartbeat – says something for quality of modern fabrics, doesn’t it). I’m thinking perhaps they also didn’t mordant and that’s why it faded sooner?

Anyway, I found the yellows of the birch a bit dull on my first try, lovely and blending in with nature, but in my initial plant dyeing craze I’ve been going for as much vibrancy as possible. That may change – I do see some natural fleece dying projects in my future, from sheep to sweater kinda thing. Or wall hangings actually.

Soooo, I haven’t explored it extensively yet. What I thought I’d do apart from showing my measly results from last year is write up a summary of the older recipes I’ve found in out of print books, my thoughts on future experimenting and perhaps a few links for the hungry.

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