Tag: yellow

Goldenrod – gyldenris

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

Plant dyeing season is coming to an end, at least the urgent part of it trying to use the fresh plants as they appear. I’m beginning to look at my paints and spinning wheel again, but I still have a few experiments to share.

I’m down to making 6 g hanks at the moment, but that also means I can add one more experiment to the log that I had thought to save for next year. It also means I can do more experiments with one single plant. It does not mean I’ll remember to include every single variety there is to try, but I’ll try.

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I’ve seen 2 varieties of Goldenrod in the forest that bloomed one after the other, they’re brown now, but the ones in my garden are flowering, so I used those.

Flowers & leaves separately. Alum, alkaline after, iron after, exhaust bath, blue overdye, cochineal overdye.

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The colour from the flowers turned out to be a lot more bronzy and dark than I’d anticipated, and I wondered if it was because I accidentally boiled the plants very strongly, then left to steep for quite a long time, THEN managed to also boil the yarn. The day after I scooted over to Riihivilla where I’d saved but not yet read her post on goldenrod, and this is what I was told:

The color may dull if the temp is too hot or the yarns cool in the bath, just like it does with weld.

Well, there you go. 😉 It’s something I’ve noticed happening with some yellow plants, if you leave it in too long, it goes brown. Others, like birch, seem to be able to last for a long time so that you can safely solar dye and still get brilliant colour.

Leaves were more green and not as strong in colour.

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Luckily I had more flowers in the garden (I’m saving the ones in the freezer, from the forest, for later). So I did a very careful simmer and did the whole thing on the same day, no steeping.

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Nothing extraordinary from this yellow, in fact I like the boiled lot best.

Gyldenrisdanish

Sæsonen for friske planter til farvning er ved at være slut og jeg er begyndt at skæve til maling og spinderok igen. Men jeg har lige et par eksperimenter eller 4 jeg gerne vil dele før vi skifter kanal.

Jeg har besluttet at lave mindre bundter end jeg plejer, simpelthen for at kunne lave flere eksperimenter, der er så mange ting jeg finder på at ville prøve med surhed, vandtype, overfarvning og andet halløj. Men så blev der også lige mulighed for et lille ekstra gult indslag, som jeg ellers havde tænkt mig at gemme til næste år.

Jeg startede med at totalkoge blomsterne, derefter kom jeg også til at koge garnet, begge dele stod i øvrigt i badet i over et døgn. Farven blev en del mere gylden end forventet, og det kunne jeg så bagefter læse mig til på en anden blog, at for at få den kølige, klare gule skal det ikke varmes så hårdt og ikke stå for længe. Godt så! Jeg endte jo så med at også lave en portion som simrede ganske forsigtigt. Samt en portion kun med blade, det er de grønlige. Alle fik et dyp i jern, et bundt i cochenille bare for sjov, og et i indigo.

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Plant watercolours

PiaPainting

Heidi told me about making water colours from plant dye, so I just had to give it a go even though I don’t really have the time or energy right now for another project.

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I still need to work on getting a more concentrated solution, the day I did this I had to go out, so I couldn’t let it sit on the stove to steam for hours. There’s also a matter of how long it’ll keep, my first jars were too tall for the fridge, then I managed to not have time to test the liquid for days. Then it got cold and rainy and not good for picking flowers… you get the idea.

So I’ve just been doing some washes, layering the solutions to see how dark they would go, adding iron and copper as well as soda ash and vinegar to modify. Nothing happened in fact, it may need to be heated – again, no time. And then I noted several days after, that my swatches had changed colour. So there is a possibility for modification, but a high rate of unpredictability or a steep learning curve in knowing what you’ll get eventually.

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I started out with coreopsis and tagetes, meant to do a batch with weld also. But, well. The tagetes turned out very greenish yellow and the coreopsis nearly brown, so I’ll have to do perhaps birch for a warm yellow (or Dyer’s chamomile, which I only have in a dried variety by now)

Then there’s coffee and tea, tea with iron. I’m thinking mainly backgrounds for illustrations, to start off on something not white.

I tried getting direct prints from the flowers by “hammering” them into the paper, but just got brown smudges. The colour is not waterproof after drying, so wetting these papers again for eco printing would probably wash most of it away.

I’ll investigate some more, at some point, for now I hand over the torch in case somebody else has the urge or would like to share their knowledge. I used 10% alum in proportion to weight of the liquid.

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Plante-akvareldanish

Et meget kort og forhastet forsøg pÃ¥ at lave akvarelfarve fra planter. Det fungerer – men er lidt upÃ¥lideligt mht farveændringer via kobber, syre, base, jern osv, da farverne først skiftede pÃ¥ papiret flere dage efter jeg havde malet det pÃ¥. (og allerede smidt varianterne ud). MÃ¥ske det virker bedre at opvarme hver enkelt variant eller lave dem mens det oprindelige bad er varmt.

I virkeligheden havde jeg hverken tid eller ork, skulle i byen den dag jeg kogte blomsterne, så jeg kunne ikke lade dem stå på blusset og dampe mere ind, vejret blev skidt til blomsterplukning og jeg har bare for meget at se til.. Men hvis nogen skulle få lyst og måske endda dele deres erfaringer, så er bolden hermed givet op. Der er brugt 10% alun i forhold til væskens vægt.

Jeg brugte tagetes og skønhedsøje, egentlig ville jeg også prøve vau og birk, men det er det så ikke blevet til endnu.

Brown Knapweed – Alm. Knopurt

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

Centaurea jaceaknopurt2

It so happened right after I mentioned a pH tip from Riihivilla in my Scentless chamomile post, that I spotted some Knapweed at the side of the road. So my designated driver was ordered to pull over so I could take a few pix and plants.

I didn’t get the cool yellow that Leena mentions, but I decided to also try her method of using the same dyebath once a week or so until it’s exhausted (or you are). Some plants, like birch leaves, will stay the same and dye fine for weeks, even if there’s mold in it. Others, like Celandine, will go brown and smelly in days and the dyed items will be brown too.

I actually thought it was exhausted by the 2nd skein, but decided to give it another week. And got a stronger colour. So obviously had to keep going. Unfortunately I think I know I weighed the plants (mostly flowers), but must have forgotten to take notes. But it was rather “a lot.” Now that I see the dates I’ve noted, my weeks obviously aren’t as long as they feel like. I’m going to try and leave it for a bit now.

21st July

24th July

29th July

2nd August

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They’re not very exciting, but Leena writes that they are nice under woad for greens. I’m going to try one of them with reeds, which I’m playing with at the moment and looks awesome on Birch.

Knapweed 2 >>

PÃ¥ danskdanish

Jeg nævnte i indlægget om Falsk kamille, at jeg fra Leena i Finland havde fået ideen om at tilsætte potaske når man trækker farven ud af planterne. Hun brugte knopurt, og et par dage efter så jeg rent faktisk en lille dusk i vejkanten og beordrede straks min chauffør ind til siden til foto og indsamling.

Jeg startede ikke med en kold gul som nævnt i linket, men jeg besluttede at gøre på samme måde som beskrevet, at lade badet stå og med mellemrum varme op og farve igen indtil der ikke sker mere. Det er lidt pudsigt at nogen farvebade bare giver det meste til første fed, og de efterfølgende bliver lysere og lysere, men her får man altså næsten samme farve igen og igen, også selvom de nogen gange står i gryden et døgn.

Regner med at overfarve med blå og evt. med tagrør, som jeg leger med lige pt.

Allerede ved fed 2 skete der så ikke ret meget, desværre glemte jeg at skrive vægten på blomsterne ned, men der var mange. Fed 3 var sjovt nok mere gult, så jeg blev jo nødt til at teste i hvert fald ét mere!

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Fun with coreopsis

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

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Last time I tried to grow these, I got a few spindly stalks with hardly anything on them. Which means, this year I totally underestimated how far apart I should plant and now I have a waist high jungle of thick, thick plants with hardly a size 5 footprint anywhere for me to reach the middle for picking flowers. I’ve taken to wearing my Fivefingers, to make the footprint smaller than a pair of Crocs (I apologize to those of you who are fashion conscious, but they DO work well for zipping in and out of the house all day).

I know they work really well frozen, so this year I’ll try drying some and see if that works, because it’s easier to store anywhere. Whereas steak and peas don’t survive for very long on a wardrobe shelf…

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And I’ll have enough to conduct a series of tests, as I’ve heard a rumour they are pH sensitive. If you just want a regular yellow, you need less than half your yarnweight in flowers, or you can start with plenty and dye one skein at a time from orange over turmeric to sunny yellow until it exhausts. It also doesn’t need a lot of heat once the dye is extracted from the flowers, it’s excellent for solar dyeing and on silk.

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So the plan would be:

  1. alkaline for reds
  2. acid for yellows
  3. test skeins in neutral
  4. amounts – work my way from strong dyebath to an exhausted one
  5. if the reds come out – test them with tin, to see if it gets even redder
  6. iron and copper possibly

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You can get a lot of different yellows from the exhaust, depending on amount of yarn, plants, temperature, how long you let each skein remain in the bath etc. Here’s the 2011 batch with some cold dyed Japanese Indigo:

Japanese Indigo

Skønhedsøje

Coreopsis tinctoria er rigtig god at lege med fordi man kan få så mange forskellige nuancer. Hvis man starter med et kraftigt farvebad og kommer 1 fed i af gangen, kan man få fra kraftig orange over gurkemeje-gylden til frisk solgul.

I år ville jeg så også lige teste påstande om at den er pH følsom, rød fra basisk farvebad og gul fra surt. Det blev en helt anden slags gul end ellers, og pga en fejl fra min side (manglende base) lavede jeg også lige en variant med kobber.

Der skal meget lidt blomst til, til alm gul behøver man mindre end halvdelen af garnvægten. Også flot på silke og god at solfarve med.

Det fungerer ogsÃ¥ rigtig godt at fryse blomsterne, men i Ã¥r vil jeg ogsÃ¥ forsøge at tørre, da det er lidt nemmere at opbevare. Bøf og ærter holder knap sÃ¥ godt i et garderobeskab. 😉

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Tagetes 3

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

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Having used double up plant to yarn the first time, I wanted to test the dye properties at 1:1 ratio. I used the tagetes tenuifolia.

I did 1 alum, 1 rhubarb and then 1 copper mordanted in a pot of its own. And yes, it’s different, but not green like the first year, I must have really overdone it back then. Now I’m intrigued as to actually getting green on purpose.

Rhubarb: you disappoint me (again). It may be that it only works in some plant combinations, but frankly then I can’t be bothered. I also have no succes with it on cotton, but more on that later.

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These three skeins didn’t even get simmered, I just put them in the warm dyebath to soak. So I decided to test how far I could go on the exhaust, one skein at a time. 5 more skeins, so that’s 200 g yarn from 75 g of flowers.

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Tagetes 1

Tagetes 2

Tagetes igen igendanish

Sidst brugte jeg dobbelt op af plante i forhold til garn, så jeg ville lige teste en gang 1:1. Samt det rabarberbejdsede garn og kobber i en gryde for sig.

Denne gang fik jeg ikke grøn fra kobber som det første år, så nu tænker jeg jo på, hvordan man får det med vilje. Rabarber er igen meget skuffende/kedeligt, jeg tror ikke det er noget jeg vil bruge krudt på igen.

Efter 3 fed farvet 1:1 ville jeg så teste hvor meget ekstra farve der var i, så jeg blev ved med at putte garn i, et fed af gangen indtil det blev meget lyst. 5 stk. blev det til, så det er i alt 200 g garn til 75 g blomster! Jeg brugte Appelsintagetes denne gang.