I’m working away carding and spinning the fleece I dyed in honey jars last summer, making good progress I think. For most of the yarns I’ve taken several similar chunks and blended to get even more depth in the finished yarn, but this one intrigues me so much I want to leave it alone even if it’s just a small amount.
I have no idea how I got this colour, it’s made with the “pour several leftovers into the same jar” method. I just hope I like it as yarn as well!
And then there’s a batch that looks almost like a fox pelt, which I also rather like after it’s been fluffed:
Harvested the first rhubarbs, finally, and as a bonus to the lovely crumble pie I boiled the leaves to try using as mordant. The fumes being apparently toxic, I used a hotplate in the barn (clever thing that turns itself off), and forgot about them for a few days before I strained the liquid and added yarn.
Which I subsequently forgot about for another 3-4 days…..So, not only a mordant, but already dyed! I believe the colour, as I learned on some other blog, could be described as “mucky fawn”. (incidentally I have 6 hanks of this)
Well, we’ll see how it does with light and other dyes on top. I have a feeling it’s just going to be mucky with a hint of yellow….
I may or may not try this and not heat it AND pull it out a bit quicker, what do you say? Cotton?
I wanted to test my new plant dyeing yarn type, which I’m very excited about. It’s not only cheaper than my regular supply used to be (it has recently gone up 20% in price), it’s also much nicer. Smoother, more plies, and comes in readymade 25 g hanks.
not the ones I used (1993)
So I’ve been deadheading daffodils for a few days, leaving them to soak in water until I had enough. In fact I was so busy collecting, that I forgot to take a nice flower photo for this post first!
I haven’t had time to do any natural mordanting yet, so I did the usual alum routine.
I didn’t actually expect much, but was pleasantly surprised, especially with the unmordanted hank, which is considerably more coloured than the dandelion hank I did on the same day.
I then collected the last heads and did an iron mordanted hank as well. I’m extremely pleased with this! Remains to be seen how fast these are of course. But I like this green so much compared to other iron induced greens or the nettle sample I did the other day, that I may just get more bulbs in the fall just for dyeing green!
Det siges jo at man skal prøve alt mindst een gang, så i år hoppede jeg på påskeliljerne. Vi har ikke så mange af de helt gule i haven, men det blev da til et alunbejset fed, et ubejset og et jernbejset.
Jeg samler når de begynder at visne, eller hvis nogen er knækket, og opbevarer i vand indtil der er nok, gerne flere dage.
Jeg blev da glædeligt overrasket over hvor meget farve jeg fik ud af dem, så den er absolut på listen over mulige planter i fremtiden. Faktisk er den grønne ret fantastisk i forhold til det ene fed brændenælde jeg har fået lavet (mere på vej).
Jeg har ikke nået at lave alternative bejsninger, som fx. rabarber, de er kun lige begyndt at kigge frem.
I’d already tried this 2 years ago and didn’t really think to repeat, but then again, one can always use yellow as a base for green or brown. I also wanted to break in the cast iron pot that I found in an “antique” shop.
So I did one hank in the iron pot, the others in a steel pot. And was quite disappointed. Even though I’d also cooked the flowers in the iron pot, it was no different from the others, I had to give it a bath with green vitriol to make it change.
So far I’ve only used flower heads because the leaves are hugging the ground mostly and are hard to pick, but I did want to do at least one skein before I abandon this plant. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because it’s not very remarkable compared to most wild plants that give yellow. If I need some, I can use it, but I’m not going to plan for it again.
It’s said that the leaves turn it more towards green than just the flowers. It didn’t BUT, the mordanted skein was ever so stronger yellow than the one with just flowers, so I definitely recommend going to the trouble of picking leaves as well. The two unmordanted hanks are almost identical, so I’ll probably be turning one into green with indigo or woad, unless I suddenly need a lot of pale yellow.
left to right: leaves no mordant, flowers no mordant, flowers + alum, flowers + alum + iron, leaves + alum
Now I just need to test it for lightfastness. Most of my yarns in fact. One of those tasks that I find less stimulating and leave off, like tax papers and such. 😉
Coming up next: Daffodils and Stinging nettle.
Mælkebøtter
Da jeg lige ville teste min nye støbejernsgryde, har jeg været en tur omkring mælkebøttefarvning igen – fordi det er de planter som er fremme nu. Jeg brugte et enkelt ubejset fed og ellers alun. Kun blomsterhoveder, da bladene mest ligger fladt pÃ¥ jorden her, nede i græsset.
Desværre fik jeg ikke rigtig noget anderledes resultat fra jerngryden, man får ellers tudet ørerne fulde af, at det dæmper farven på samme måde som decideret jernbejse. Så jeg måtte have det tredje fed en tur i en balje med jernvitriol for at få den olivengrønne farve jeg gik efter.
Og så ville jeg alligevel teste et enkelt fed med kun blade, for at se om det er rigtigt at de bliver lidt mere grønlige. Mælkebøtter er ikke bemærkelsesværdige i forhold til andre planter i naturen som giver gul, de kan bruges hvis de lige er der og man mangler gult, men jeg har ikke tænkt mig at bruge den år efter år bare for at gøre det.
Jeg blev temmelig overrasket over den kraftige gule farve jeg fik fra bladene, ikke grøn, men helt klart mere farve end fra blomsterne. Så det kan anbefales.
Lystestes skal det nok også, jeg skal bare lige tage mig sammen til at lave papskiver og lister og halløj for at holde styr på det.
Næste punkt på programmet er påskeliljer og brændenælde.
