Walnut husk dyeing

I think my eyes must be missing some rods and cones, as most of this yarn just looks BROWN to me. My artistic daughter, on the other hand, picks out yellows and greens as well as various shades of brown. She obviously does not get her talent from me!

Walnut husk dye bath

Creating a dye bath from walnut husks is relatively easy. First, soak a bunch of unhulled walnuts in water, for as long as you like. Some sources say an hour, some say a day, some say a week, some say until you get around to dyeing with them. The longer they set, the funkier the smell, but it, and the mold, do not matter.

Initial dip

When you are ready to dye, simmer the nuts for an hour. Then add yarn, mordanted or unmordanted, and simmer for an hour. Then let sit overnight.

Gross!

If you want, repeat the dye process. Apply modifiers. Rinse. Hang to dry.

First samples

I worked with 16 one-ounce yarn samples of Lambs Price worsted. Each one was treated differently. Half were mordanted with alum and cream of tartar, half were not. Half the mordanted and half the unmordanted went through the dye bath once, the rest went twice. Some were not modified, some were modified in vinegar, some in an iron afterbath, some in liquid from wood ash.

Litmus paper test

Because previous attempts to modify dyed yarn did not seem to do anything, I tested the pH of the modifiers with litmus, to make sure they were really acid, neutral, and alkaline. (My dad was a chemist - can you tell?)

Dyed yarn does not match colors in book

The yarn colors are supposed to match those four on the left in the picture above. To my untrained eye, they are not even close. Am I doing something wrong? Or is the book (Wild Colors) lying or are its examples supposed to be for illustrative purposes only?

Alum & cream of tartar mordant
One dye bath
Modifiers: none, acid, iron, alkaline

No mordant
Two dye baths
Modifiers: none, acid, iron, alkaline

Alum & cream of tartar mordant
Two dye baths
Modifiers: none, acid, iron, alkaline

No mordant
One dye bath
Modifiers: none, acid, iron, alkaline

One dye bath

Two dye baths

Altogether now

Even though I enjoy the process, it is a lot of work to go through to get such similar shades of brown, me thinks. What think you?

Slow dyeing

Since I am on grandma hiatus for a couple of weeks, I decided it was a good time to tackle one of those projects I had planned for the summer. With school starting mid August around here, summer feels half over. Time's a-wastin'!

Project number one was to dye some yarn with onion skins. I had saved up nearly a paper grocery bagful of yellow onion skins - 5 whole ounces. According to Jenny Dean's book, Wild Color, this amount of onion skins would dye... 2.5 ounces of yarn. Wha'?!? It turns out that was not quite accurate, but it colored (heh) my decisions on how to proceed. The yarn I chose was Cascade 220 and Lamb's Pride, wound into approximately one-ounce skeins.

Onion skins

Also according to the book, if I wanted a nice tangerine color instead of yellow, I would have to mordant the yarn with alum. This I did, but using the cold, slow method outlined by Dean. After all, who wants to be slaving over a hot stove in July? I also ended up applying the mordant in two separate baths, as I kept changing the plan. This may have affected the results somewhat.

Primary onion skin bath

The only cooking I did was to simmer the onion skins for about an hour. After straining, this became what I called the primary dye bath. Then I simmered the onion skins for another hour, to create a secondary dye bath. I dyed a one-ounce skein of each type of yarn in each of these two baths, then another pair of skeins in each "exhaust" bath. I then combined the two baths and used that as well on another pair of skeins. I even threw two unmordanted skeins into the final dye bath, just for fun. The idea was to end up with a range of yellow-to-orange colors.

The Plan (before additions)

I chose the cold method for dyeing the yarn, partly because Dean said I could and partly because it's July (see above) and partly because Lamb's Pride contains mohair. Mohair provides warmth but does not like to be heated. The cold method meant soaking the yarn for 12 hours for each stage. This meant DAYS of my kitchen being cluttered with dye pots and other dye equipment.

Orange you glad you are dyeing me?

I'm fairly pleased with the results, especially the Cascade; the Lamb's Pride came out more murky.

Cascade 220

From top to bottom: Primary dye bath, secondary dye bath, primary dye bath exhaust, secondary dye bath exhaust, combined dye bath exhaust, combined dye bath exhaust without mordant.

Lamb's Pride

I think these colors will work well with the henna-dyed yarn I created earlier this year.

Compare and contrast

Not wanting to waste a single opportunity to dye something orange-ish, I took an old yellow-stained-armpit but otherwise perfectly good white tank top and threw it in the final exhausted dye bath, without mordant (although I could have added some mordant to the dye bath itself. I always think of these things too late.)

White tank top now dyed

Next up: dyeing with Queen Anne's lace.

Workshop aftermath

As I mentioned in my previous post about a dyeing workshop I recently attended, one of the dye sources was black beans. The sample I took away from class was a light blue, but the sample I brought home turned out light green. I'm guessing one of the wooden spoons was contaminated with copper (from the mordanting of a different yarn sample).

The hibiscus tea flowers I brought home from the workshop were disappointing - the result was taupe. The photo below shows undyed yarn lying on top of unmordanted dyed yarn. It is not a black-and-white photo.

SO... I decided to overdye the yarn with henna, which I purchased at Fresh Thyme in their hair dye section. I chose the variety with only henna in it, using 4 ounces of henna for 8 ounces of Lambs Pride wool. Then I threw a couple of one-ounce skeins into the exhausted dye bath. The result is two lovely shades of brown.

After "cooking" the henna, I strained the dye bath through some cotton cloth before adding the yarn. Since the cotton cloth was basically partially dyed from this step, I threw it into the exhausted dye bath as well. The results were uneven (and more tan than this photo indicates).

One thing I learned from this post-workshop experience is not to leave yarn in an eight-ounce hank when dyeing. I was too lazy to rewind it into two four-ounce skeins, but eight ounces is just too much wet wool to wrestle with, especially when rinsing, then spinning in a salad spinner. I considered experimenting with different after-dye processes, but by the time I reached this point, I was done with dyeing... for a while.

Tedious fun

I've attended several dyeing workshops (dyeing with acid dyes, natural dyeing, natural dyeing including indigo, shibori dyeing with indigo) and dyed with KoolAid a couple of times, but I had yet to try natural dyeing on my own. I've been accumulating equipment and ingredients and yarn and books, but had not yet pulled the trigger. Part of the problem has been my reluctance to mordant the yarn. But then I noticed that some natural dyes do not require mordanting, so I decided what the hell, go for it.

Many dye books present the topic as experiments in color, and no matter what you do, that is what hand dyeing is, as reproducing the same results consistently is a challenge, more so when using natural dyeing materials and techniques. This led me to a really tedious step in the preparation for yarn dyeing: winding single ounce mini-skeins from larger skeins. I'm glad I did this because I really was just experimenting, but OMG, was it ever boring. After a while, I decided I had enough 1oz mini-skeins and started making larger (and LARGER) ones.

For yarn, I chose naked Cascade 220 and Lambs Pride. Both are worsted weight, but Cascade 220 is 100% wool from Peru while Lambs Pride is 85% wool and 15% mohair and made in the USA. They produced different results, which is good to know in case one is mixing fibers for dyeing. The Cascade 220 comes in 3.5oz skeins while the Lambs Pride is in 4oz skeins. Behind my yarn choice is the idea that I will take all my naturally dyed yarns and knit something like an adult-sized baby surprise jacket.

Relying on the book Wild Color, by Jenny Dean, I started with the idea of dyeing with tumeric because tumeric root is now available in the produce section of some of my favorite stores. But then I read that tumeric is frequently combined with pomegranate, and hey, this is pomegranate season, so I bought some of those, too. Tumeric is not very colorfast, regardless of mordenting, but pomegranate rind naturally mordants the yarn. So no pre-mordanting. BUT. I did decide to apply color modifiers afterwards, ammonia for the tumeric and iron for the pomegranate and pomegranate/tumeric blend.

Cooking minced tumeric roots

I initially chopped the tumeric root by hand, but then threw it all into a mini-grinder. For the pomegranate, I just rough chopped it. If I were to do it over, I would not chop the tumeric as fine, as it was difficult to strain all the bits out, and I would maybe mince the pomegranate rind more so, as that is where the tannin is.

Cooking chopped pomegranate

I worked in the kitchen, even using one of my kitchen pots for a dye bath. This is usually a big NO-NO in hand dyeing - you are supposed to keep dye equipment separate from kitchen equipment AND work in a well-ventilated place like a garage and not the kitchen. BUT. I was dyeing with FOOD, so come on. Even the iron for the postdye bath was food grade.

Tumeric dye bath (before straining)

I think I simmered both the tumeric and the pomegranate for about an hour, then let them cool to room temperature before straining. I created a dyebath with just tumeric, one with just pomegranate, and one with a mixture of the two, maybe 2-to-1 in favor the the pomegranate. The plain tumeric became a cool-dye bath - I added the yarn but no heat. The other two were hot-dye baths - I added the yarn and brought the baths up to simmer (and I think simmered them for half an hour). Then all three sat overnight.

Pomegranate bath (before straining)

The next day, I rinsed each skein in running water since they were small and this was easy to do. By now, I had abandoned the kitchen in favor of the laundry room where there is a utility sink. Some of the plain tumeric skeins received an after treatment in an ammonia bath. This is supposed to pink up the color, but I didn't see much of that. It wasn't clear how much ammonia to use or how long to let the yarn soak, so I tried again the next day with not much change.

Iron afterdye

Some of the plain pomegranate and pomegranate/tumeric skeins received a post treatment in an iron bath. This "saddens" the colors. It doesn't take much iron and the yarn doesn't need to be in the bath very long. Everything was well rinsed after the after treatment.

Identification system

You may be wondering how I kept track of which skein had which treatment. I tried planning things out ahead of time, with minimal success, primarily because I was not sure about what I was doing. But I did label the skeins as I wound them into minis, then replaced those labels with plastic ones for the dye process, matching numbers/letters between labels and skeins. This worked okay, as long as I remembered to write down which skein got which treatment.

Note taking mess

This whole process was quite tedious, but then came the big reveal - colors! These photos don't capture the more subtle differences between the different treatments, especially the "pinking" of the ammonia, but the results were very interesting. One thing I learned is, if I am going to go through all this trouble to hand dye yarn, I should pick colors I actually like (yellows and greens are NOT in this group).

Tumeric, Cascade 220 (L), Lambs Pride (R)

Tumeric, Cascade 220, no afterdye (L), ammonia afterdye (R)

Tumeric, Lambs Pride, no afterdye (L), ammonia afterdye (R)

Pomegranate, Cascade 220 (L), Lambs Pride (R)

Pomegranate, Cascade 220, no afterdye (L), iron afterdye (R)

Pomegranate, Lambs Pride, no afterdye (L), iron afterdye (R)

Cascade 220, pomegranate (L), pomegranate and tumeric (R)

Lambs Pride, pomegranate (L), pomegranate and tumeric (R)

Pomegranate and tumeric, Cascade 220 (L), Lambs Pride (R)

Pomegranate and tumeric, Cascade 220, no afterdye (L), iron afterdye (R)

Pomegranate and tumeric, Lambs Pride, no afterdye (L), iron afterdye (R)

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