Teensy tansy tests

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 håndfuld 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!

11 thoughts on “Teensy tansy tests

  1. playing with tansy myself this week 🙂 threads, cotton, silk, drawings, paintings, chemistry–and the first dip almost seems neon it’s so sunny i agree!

  2. by the way, tansy and tansy ragwort are 2 different plants–ragwort is poisonous, tansy is toxic only if consumed in large amounts

    1. OH! I just went by wikipedia or someplace like that since I’m not a native English speaker. I’ll have that fixed asap! Thanks. I’ll try not to hurry as much in the future 😉

      1. just researching myself but the dye tansy is Tanacetum Vulgare and the ragwort is Senecio Jacobae, 2 different species

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