After listening to a talk about dyeing with invasives, presented by a member of the Austin fiber guild, I looked up local invasives I could dye with. Dame's rocket was on the list.
 |
| Dame's rocket |
I gathered the seed heads (700g of them) and soaked them for several days in tap water without applying heat.
 |
| 700g |
I then strained the dye bath (several times, including through an old jersey pillowcase). The dye bath looked like grape Kool-Aid.
 |
| Grape Kool-Aid! |
Meanwhile, I divided a 100g skein of blank Cascade 220 yarn into four 50-yard skeins, plus a mini skein of the leftover bit. They received a cold alum mordant (a la
Wild Color) using 10% alum.
My original plan was to use only some of this yarn, but I mindlessly threw it all into the dye bath. I heated the dye bath to 175-185 degrees and held it there for 30 minutes. Then I removed the small skein right away but left the rest to cool in the dye bath overnight.
The next day, I modified some of the overnight yarn, using vinegar for acid, ammonia for alkaline, and iron. I applied heat with the acid, which caused the yarn to bleed a bit. No heat was used for the alkaline. Heat was used for the iron, but the yarn did not bleed as much.
 |
| Gotta check the pH |
The result was a range of pleasing pastels.
 |
| Mini skein removed early |
 |
| Unmodified but left in overnight |
 |
| Acid modifier |
 |
| Alkaline modifier |
 |
| Iron modifier |
The next step is to set up a colorfast test using ambient light. My guess is the dye will fade to varying degrees, depending on the modifier. Perhaps this is an empty exercise, but it is fun to experiment.
No comments:
Post a Comment