Walnut Debris

We know the squirrels have been busy when we see piles of walnut debris in piles all over the place.   We have loads of walnut trees and plenty of happy squirrels - mostly grey squirrels, but some fox squirrels, too.  

You can collect these hulls and freeze or dry them to use for dyeing.  They make beautiful colors.

Lady's Bedstraw - An Herb to Know

Years ago I collected herbs in the garden.  Then this one tried to take over.  So I dug it up and planted it on a hill where it had to compete with grass and brambles.   It's still happy, but we're not in danger of it singing, 'Feed me, Seymour!'

It's lady's bedstraw, Galium verum.  It's a dual duty herb, used as a natural flea repellent and as a dye plant. 

It has tall beautiful, honey scented flowers - 24-30" tall depending on how happy it is.   The roots form a dense creeping mat and the leaves are a spiky version of typical galium leaves. 

It was dried and stuffed into mattresses traditionally, hence the common name - Lady's Bedstraw.    

This is one natural dye we never tried to use because it's a bit seasonal.   The roots have to be dug up at just the right time for the best color.  Then they have to be chopped finely. Here's a great write up from someone who has tried it.

Natural Dye Sample Project: Part 3

Over the past few days I've told you about our natural dye experiments, the process we used, the mordants and afterbaths and the fibers.    In this last part, I'm going to talk a bit about each of the dyes.     The photo shows the alpaca samples.   Refer to Part 2 for pics of other samples that turned out super well. 

From left to right, the dyes we used were:   indigo, comfrey, goldenrod, osage orange, walnut, apple twigs, madder, brazilwood, cochineal, logwood.

I've done posts of some of these before, so follow the links [red or purple] to more information.

Indigo:   This dye requires an oxygen poor environment in which to bind the dye to the fiber.   This means you have to create a 'reduction vat'.   There are several ways to do that.  We used Rit Dye Remover as the reducing agent.   Worked great!     In the past I have also used sheep urine to achieve a reduction vat.   It worked, but smelled awful.     Tradition has it that the best thing to use in indigo vats was the urine of adolescent boys.    We didn't go there.

Comfrey:  This is a mostly medicinal plant that was brought over from Europe and has now naturalized.    I found some on this place and planted it around [Extremely effective for bruising, scrapes, cuts, etc.].   One of the dye books mentioned that it gave a green dye so we tried it.   It did give a nice light olive dye, but it takes a lot of leaves.    The photos don't give it justice.

Goldenrod:  We have acres of goldenrod out here.  Gather the flower tops.  It's best to use just as the flowers are opening.   You can cut it and dry it and save it for later and it works just fine.

Osage Orange: This is a tree native to this part of the world. Maclura pomifera has large soft seed balls.  It is an extremely useful tree - good for bug repellent as well as gorgeous orange dyes.    We used sawdust for the dye. 

Walnut:  Black walnuts in the hull give great dyes.   I saved ours and we used them after they had turned black.   It takes a couple of days of boiling to get a lot of dye out, but it sure gives gorgeous browns.

Apple twigs:  We pruned our apple tree early one spring and a few hours later noticed bright orange staining on the wood.    I did a little research and sure enough, it has been used for dyeing, so we tried it.    I gathered smaller twigs - finger sized - cut them up and boiled them in a pot.   I loved the color.

Madder:   Plenty has been written on the use of madder in dyeing.   We purchased the dried roots and used those.    It takes an extra day of soaking to release the dye, so plan ahead.

Brazilwood:  This is hard to come by these days and has become very expensive.  If you can get some, do!   It gives gorgeous colors and the wood chips can be used multiple times until exhausted.   This was one of my favorite dyes to use because of the wide range of colors it yielded.

Cochineal:  This is an insect.   Also very expensive these days.    When you buy it, you'll get a packet of dried grayish bugs.   Grind the bugs up to release the dye.    A little goes a very long way - we thought we were going to get medium shades of red and we got very very very dark shades.   This is a dyebath that will yield many exhaust baths, so prep lots of yarn. 

Logwood:   Another tree Haematoxylum campechianum  yields great color.  We were shooting for lavenders, but got lots of gray.    It's possible that we were using too much dye or the pH was wrong.     The alpaca in the photo above showed the best color variation for this dye.

Where to buy natural dyes?   A lot of these dyes can be found near you - collect them from the wild.  Remember to ask permission before you go into someone's field or yard to gather something. 

For the more exotic dyes you can get great natural dye kits and extracts from Earthues and dry dyestuff from  Dharma Trading Company.  

A couple of things to remember:

• Natural dyeing is not precise.    You won't get the same color twice.   That's why synthetic dyes were invented.   
• Natural dyeing is not necessarily safe or organic.   Stick to alum and tartaric acid or cream of tartar if you want safe mordants.   Wear gloves.
• Prep plenty of fiber so that you can exhaust the dyebath completely - you'll get a lot of shades that way. 
• Natural dyeing is a long process.  Give yourself plenty of time. 
• In order to get even color over your fiber, you'll need to stir.  However!  Stirring can cause felting with protein fibers so have a plan for gentle swishing and don't be surprised if the fibers come out streaky.   

Good luck!   And keep us posted on your own dye experiments.

Natural Dye Experiments: Part 2

This is part 2 of the final report from our natural dye experiments.     From top to bottom, the dyes are:

Indigo
Comfrey
Goldenrod
Osage Orange
Walnuts
Apple twigs
Madder
Brazilwood
Cochineal
Logwood

I can never decide if I like them best organized by fiber, or by color.

In the end, I think I like looking at them by color the best.   Of course.

See Part 1 for how we organized the experiments and the full list of fibers, mordants, etc.   The fibers that turned out best for us were: mohair, silk, alpaca, wool and superwash wool.   [Since the wool and alpaca looked pretty much alike, I'm not going to talk about it in this post.   So sorry.]  These were the protein fibers.

The cellulose fibers didn't take the dye very well with the dye methods we were using.   So, First Lesson - plant fibers and animal fibers require different dye methods when using natural dyes.

Dyeing went this way:

• prep dye
• pre-mordant fibers and rinse
• cook in dyebath for at least an hour
• rinse
• postmordant and rinse
• afterbath and rinse.

This is the mohair.   Gorgeous, isn't it.   We loved the way mohair took natural dyes.   The dyes again from left to right are:  indigo, comfrey, goldenrod, osage orange, walnut, apple twigs, madder, brazilwood, cochineal, logwood.

The superwash really took the dye.   Much darker than any of the rest of the fibers we tried.  This is typical of superwash in general.    It does not behave like wool with dye.  Superwash wool is treated so that it doesn't felt as much.     It will felt.  I have proof.  But it can handle a lot more abuse than plain wool - which felts if you look at it cross-eyed on a humid day.

Here's the silk.   I wish the photo did that luster justice.    Naturally dyed silk just glows.  So pretty!

The fiber that I think did best with the natural dyes was alpaca.    It took the dyes beautifully, retained its softness and luster and glowed like the silk.    Absolutely gorgeous. 

When you look at the card this way, you can immediately see which mordants and mordant combinations  produced the best color and the best variety of color.

Hands down, alum is the winner.    It's also the safest mordant to use - it's very safe.   If you have to use only one mordant with your natural dyes, then choose alum as the premordant.

Here's a different perspective of the alpaca samples above.    The left set of the samples was pre-mordanted with tin.  The center set of the samples is the one with alum as the pre-mordant.  The right set had no pre-mordant at all. 

Look at the center sets.    All of these were pre-mordanted with alum and tartaric acid.

See the darkest set of samples in the center of every dye card?    Those were post-mordanted with iron.  The top dark one had an additional afterbath in an ammonia solution at the very end.  The second dark one had no additional afterbath.  

The pair of samples just above the iron ones was post-mordanted in copper.   The top of that pair had an additional afterbath in an ammonia solution at the very end.  The lower of that pair had no additional afterbath. 

The top pair of alum samples was post-mordanted in tin.  The top of that pair had an additional afterbath in an ammonia solution at the very end.  The lower of that pair had no additional afterbath.  

The bottom pair had no post-mordanting at all.    The top of that pair had an additional afterbath in an ammonia solution at the very end.  The lower of that pair had no additional afterbath.  

Here's the comfrey sample [Just right of the blue sample in the long pic above this one.    You see the four pairs of alum samples?    From left to right:  tin post-mordant, copper post-mordant, iron post-mordant and no post-mordant.    

This is a good illustration of how each post-mordant affects natural dyes in general.   

• Tin brightens
• Copper greens
• Iron darkens

Natural Dye Sample Project: Part 1

Several years ago, a few friends and I set out on a quest to dye ten different fibers with ten different natural dyes.

We also wanted to see what differences we could get on the fibers with different pre-mordants.

And post-mordants.

And afterbaths.  

It turned into kind of a big deal.    A big, glorious, messy, complicated, time-consuming, natural dye deal that took us about 2 1/2 years to complete.

Well.

It's done.    Ta-DA!

And we have these wonderful books full of natural dye samples to use as reference now.

This is how we organized things:  

The fibers:   linen, cotton, rayon, tencel, bamboo, silk, wool, superwash wool, alpaca and mohair.

The dyes:  logwood, cochineal, brazilwood, madder, walnuts, apple twigs, osage orange, goldenrod, comfrey and indigo.



The pre-mordants:  alum/tartaric acid, tin, nothing.
The post-mordants:  tin, copper, iron, nothing.
The afterbaths:  ammonia, nothing. 

For each fiber, for each dye we have a page that lists every combination of pre-mordant, post-mordant and afterbath,  Blow this pic up to see the details of the sample sheet.

We  also had a section for notes that tells us exactly how we did the dye, etc.  Notes are important.    Because I don't remember a blasted thing anymore.

Here's a pic of the notes we took on using walnuts.   Walnuts give gorgeous brown dyes, but it takes a couple of days to pull the color out of them.     That's the kind of thing you want to remember.

It took forever to punch all the holes in the cardstock, and then attach all the samples, but it was worth it.   [We tried drilling them, but...uh...no.].   There are 90 sample cards and 24 different combinations of mordants on each page. [A couple of cards have more than one set of samples.]   That is 2400 different dye samples all organized in binders for each of us. 

No wonder it took 2 1/2 years.

Tomorrow, I'll show you the fibers that dyed the best and talk a bit about the process. 

Common Mullein

Its formal name is Verbascum thapsus.  It's a transplant from Europe, brought over for its healing powers.

It pops up everywhere out here.   We find it along the roadsides, creeksides, barn sides, and even on the rocks where a bit of dirt might gather. It's not fussy.  It's tough and grows in the most unlikely places.


2000 years ago, Dioscorides recommended the plant as a curative for lung problems - coughs, colds and bronchitis.   It has been included in many official and national formularies.

Bigger plants stay green all winter here - a lovely sight in January when everything else is brown.  I love the silvery green. 

The flowering stalk gets about 5 feet tall and has small yellow flowers along it.   Rumor has it that the flowers are good as a natural dye.    I've never used it, since collecting them would be tedious and it would take a long time to get enough to dye much at all.

Goldenrod

September is a golden month.   Most of the fall blooming flowers are yellow, the trees are just starting to think about turning...and

...it's goldenrod season.  

We have acres of goldenrod.   It's beautiful!

There are dozens of varieties of goldenrod and we have many of them here.  They bloom at different times and are different heights.  It makes things interesting. 

I dry goldenrod just before the flowers open and then I can save it for dyeing later in the winter. 

It dyes beautiful golds and yellows on pretty much every fiber, except linen, which resists most dyes. 

Alum is the best mordant for yellows and golds.   The olives in the pic here were the result of using iron and copper as mordants. 

The bees also love goldenrod.   It's a valuable late season nectar source and the bee yard smells distinctly of goldenrod honey this year.    I love that smell.  

Turkey Tail

We see two types of turkey tail out here in the boonies.   The first is the kind that grows on a  turkey.     Gobble, gobble, gobble.

The second is the kind that grows on a dead log.   This is that kind.   It's pretty.   It's abundant.

You're supposed to be able to dye with it, but I haven't figured out how to get the dye out of it.  If anyone knows how, let us know in the comments. 

Wild Color

This is the revised and updated version of the classic book on natural dyeing by Jenny Dean.   [Check out her blog - link in the sidebar]

Some friends and I did a lengthy study group on natural dyeing over the past 3 years.   This book was an invaluable resource.   Jenny Dean has dyed with everything.  Her recipes are friendly and her instructions clear.

The first section of the book is a history of the use of natural dyes.    Then she has a section on Techniques.   This section is very useful.  Read it thoroughly and keep it handly.

The vast remaining section of the book is organized by dye plant.  She includes instructions for working with 66 different plant dyestuffs.  (No cochineal, no mushrooms/lichens)

Each dyestuff has a description of the material, its cultivation and harvest and a description of the procedure used to extract the dye and put it on your fiber.   There are color swatches along the edge of each page that will give you an idea of the types of colors you can get from that plant using different mordants and dips.

 I enjoyed using this book very much - so much so that when the new edition came out, I made sure to get one.   This is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in natural dyeing.

Here's a link to get one:

Natural Dye - Indigo

We did our tenth natural dye sample set a couple of weeks ago.   This was the last dyestuff for our study group on natural dyes and we ended with a bang:   Indigo!

Ahhh, indigo.

The color of the sea and sky.   American fashion's great neutral. 

We had been reading for some time about different types of indigo vats and let me tell you, there's a lot of variation out there on how to do one.  

Indigo must be in an oxygen deficient dyebath if the color is to chemically adhere to the fiber.   This means that we had to dissolve the indigo into the water, then add a reduction agent to remove the oxygen.

For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, indigo vats were reduced with urine.   Apparently the urine of young boys and pregnant women is the preferred indigo vat urine.    Now you know. 

We decided to forgo the urine.   [Just thinking about it activates my gag reflex and everyone else's, too.  Ick.]

I had chunk indigo and another of us had instant indigo.   We decided to go with the instant indigo, but we had some RIT color remover on hand just in case we needed some reduction boost.

Instant indigo [available from many places] is made so that the indigo, which is already ground and easier to dissolve, is combined with a reduction agent.   All you have to do is put it in hot water and you're ready to go.    

We added a tablespoon of instant indigo to about 3 gallons of hot water in a bit stainless steel dyepot. 

This instant indigo was older and had already been used a bit.    The reduction agent was too weak to fully reduce the vat so we added a teaspoon of the RIT color remover.    It worked beautifully!

You can tell if an indigo pot is reduced enough by looking at the color of the water.   If it's green, it's reduced.   If it's aqua or blue, there's way too much oxygen in the vat and you need to reduce it. 

Stir carefully, disturbing the surface of the water as little as possible.   Lift and dunk your fiber carefully and slowly.  Keep the temp at about 120 degrees.  

Put your fiber in and leave it for 5 or 10 minutes.   Lift it carefully out of the water and hang it up.  You'll see the color develop fairly quickly.   

If you want a darker color, it's best to do several dips, rather than one long one.   One long dip often results in 'crocking'.   Crocked dye is dark, but rubs off very easily.   It's messy and hard to rinse because it keeps bleeding.  Don't go there!  Do multiple dips instead.  

Troubleshooting:   We'd love to be able to say that we followed all the directions and things turned out perfectly, but that's never the way it happens.  

This instant indigo had clumped and we didn't realize it wasn't dissolving right until we'd added a couple more tablespoons of it to get a reasonable amount of color in the water.    Since we were trying not to stir to energetically, we didn't notice the rather copious quantity of sediment on the bottom until we put in a test sample.    It came up covered with indigo bits.  

We've done bits before.   Bits are a pain.   We prefer to strain the bits out of the dye bath.   So we did.  

We lined a colander with polyester quilt batting and poured the entire dye pot through that to strain the bits out.   Then we put the bits in a jar and added boiling water to try to dissolve more of it.   That worked reasonably well and we got quite a bit more color, which we poured into the dyebath, but we still had lots of bits.   We saved them to dry and use again later.  

When we got the right amount of color in the water, we reduced it again and put our bigger sample bundles in.    

Beautiful, glorious color!   

This was one of the most fun natural dye experiments that we've done. 

Natural Dye - Black Walnut

It's walnut time.

There's always one day in October when the wind starts blowing hard and walnuts start falling from the trees.    Those are dangerous days.    Don't go under the trees unless you have to - and if you get caught, hug the trunk.   You're less likely to get hit if you're hugging the tree.

You'll look silly, but it's true. 

Walnuts are great dye plants.   Gather them now and keep them in a bucket until you're ready to use them.   Keep the bucket covered and outside.   They'll start to wither, then turn black, then ooze and the smell is a lot less than pleasant.    Collecting natural dyestuff can really test your intestinal fortitude.    Yep.

You can use these to dye any time.    You can dye with them now or wait until they're black and oozing or wait until they've freeze dried all winter.   No matter.    They'll dye beautifully.

These are the colors we got on [L-R] cotton, alpaca, silk, wool, superwash wool.    Beautiful browns.

What you do is soak the walnuts overnight in a pot of water.   The next day, boil the whole thing for an hour and then let it sit overnight again.  On the third day, strain out the walnuts and dye your fiber.

If you're using really fresh walnuts - oozy and black - then you can just boil it all the first day and let it sit over night.   Skip the first soak.

You can also fill a bucket with walnuts and drop your fiber in there and just leave it in the sun for a few days.   It'll be splotchy, but beautiful.

Natural Dye - Goldenrod

Now is the time to gather goldenrod for dyeing.   You can dry it and save it for later - it gives beautiful colors even after months.

Pick flowers that are open but not going to seed.   Hang them in bunches, upside down.  Once they're dry, put them in paper bags until you're ready to use them. 

This is a very versatile dye plant!

We got an amazing range of colors with goldenrod.  Post-mordanting with iron really changed the color from gold to deep olive greens.  

Goldenrod takes much better on protein fibers than cellulose fibers.   Look at the top [left] card in the pic, right.   That's cotton.  Not much color took at all. 


To dye with goldenrod, cut the stems and leaves off and let the flowering parts [fresh or dry] soak in warm water overnight.   The next day, boil for an hour, then strain the plant parts out and put your fiber in.  

Tip:   Use quilt batt inside a large funnel to strain the plant material out.    The polyester batts rinse clean and can be used during you next dye day. 

Comfrey: Part 1, Natural Dyeing

Comfrey [Symphytum officinale] is a most useful plant.    We were lucky enough to inherit a couple of wild-ish ones when we moved here.    I say wild-ish because I'm pretty darned sure that the previous owners didn't know what they were, and I know they didn't plant it, but it's not the kind of thing that shows up by itself.   Someone, sometime planted it.

Then it was neglected.  Ignored.  Abused, even.   Poor thing.

But here's the deal:  These things don't die.   They are some of the toughest plants I have ever seen.   Seriously.    When I put in the veg garden, I laid gravel walks.   I dug up one of these that had been in the middle of the path and put 4 inches of gravel on it. 

It lived.   It thrived.  It grew up through the gravel and stayed put.   It didn't die even this summer when it was 9 million degrees and the sun beat down on it for months at a time.    I'd like to be that tough. 

As you can see in the pic above, these are beautiful leafy plants.   They have a wonderful flowers and some day I'll find my photos of them and show you.   Hopefully by the time I write up Comfrey:  Part 2, Medicinal Herb.   Hopefully. 

We used comfrey leaves in our natural dye study group to see what kind of color we could get. 

The pics aren't great, but they give you an idea of what we got.   Lovely sage greens and tan!

Notice that the samples on the left are a lot lighter than the samples on the right.   You're looking at the difference between how this particular dye takes on cellulose fibers [left] and protein fibers [right].    With comfrey, it makes a big, big difference.     With other dyes, like osage orange, it isn't nearly so noticeable.

The cellulose samples were so light, the only color on there was probably from the mordants.

Next time we try it we're going to use alum acetate to treat the cellulose stuff to get better colors.   Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, the protein fibers look wonderful.   [They're greener in person than they are in the pic - a beautiful sage-y green.]

Comfrey dyes more than just fibers.  I've been reading up on using natural stuff to color hand made soap with and comfrey is the most recommended material to use for green.   Here's a tutorial at soap-making-resource.com.  

By the way, if you haven't looked at Jenny Dean's Wild Color website, go there now!   You'll find a wealth of great information and beautiful colors from all kinds of natural dyes.

Natural Dyeing - Apple Twigs

This weekend we got together for a natural dye day.  We aren't ready to make a decision about indigo yet, so our dye of choice was apple twigs.   Maybe you've noticed that spring apple prunings result in beautiful orange color magically appearing on the cuts.   Turns out that is useful dye and you can put it on fiber.

Apple twigs

I started prepping the dye a day in advance.    I cut enough twigs to make 200% WOG [weight of goods = the total weight of the fibers that we'd be dyeing.]

Then I boiled them at a simmer for a few hours to help release the dye.    They smelled like apple butter.

I let them sit overnight and then in the morning I boiled them again for 90 minutes before we removed the twigs and put in the fiber.

We let it simmer for a couple of hours while we tried to catch up on the sample cards.    [I fear we'll never catch up.]

Apple twigs give beautiful apricots and browns. 

The brighter colors had an ammonia after bath.   The darker colors were post-mordanted with iron.

If we had increased the amount to 300% WOG, we'd have gotten darker colors.   I also wonder what kind of color we'd get from twigs that were dried, or cut at a different time of the year or from an apple tree that bears green or golden apples instead of red. 

If you're interested in natural dyeing, we highly recommend these two books:  Wild Color, by Jenny Dean and Indigo, Madder and Marigold by Trudy Van Stralen.

There are a lot of other natural dyeing books out there, but these are the ones we go to most often and whose instructions are comprehensive and clear.

Only one dye left and we'll achieve our goal of 10 natural dyes on 10 fibers in 24 different mordanting variations.    We've only got six of the dyes on cards so far [logwood, cochineal, madder, brazilwood, goldenrod and walnut] and already my binder is bursting.    Waiting to be put on cards:   comfrey, osage orange, apple twigs.    It's kind of exciting!

Indigo is next.    We've all done indigo before.....but it's been a while.  We'd love to hear your experiences and recommendations for an indigo pot.

Natural Dyeing

Brazilwood and goldenrod samples

Over the past couple of years some good friends and I have been meeting and experimenting with natural dyes.   It's been amazing.  I can't say enough good things about study groups.  We wanted to do it right and keep good records, so we spent a lot of time planning and prepping so we could do ten different fibers in ten different natural dyes, with various combinations of  pre- and postmordants and an ammonia dip.   And we wanted to put everything on sample cards.  Each sample card shows 24 combinations of mordants and dips for one fiber in one dye.  So far we've done eight different dyes:  logwood, goldenrod, brazilwood, comfrey, walnuts, madder, cochineal and osage orange.   When we are done, we will all have large notebooks bursting with samples.

Some day we'll finish the cards!

We have learned all kinds of things about fibers, natural dyes, mordants and organizing large projects.   It did take us months to get everything ready to dye but once we got going, we got efficient very quickly.  Then we learned that it was way more fun to do the dyeing than it was to put the samples on the cards.   We're a little behind.

Dye days go like this:  We meet in the morning and get things set up and in the pots dyeing - outside over a fire if possible.   We try to do two dyes at a time.  While the fibers dye, we have a pot luck lunch [the food is fabulous!] and catch up on the latest news, projects, patterns, books and plans that we are working on.   We always have show and tell and let me tell you, these women are master spinners and weavers and fiber artists.  Their projects are amazing.  As we talk, we put sample cards together or prep for the next dye day.   We play until people drag themselves home again at the end of the day.

We're in the planning stages for indigo, but there are many ways to do an indigo vat and we're not sure which we want to try.  We'll likely try a thiox vat and we've found recipes for a yeast vat and a urine vat.    No one is really excited about the urine vat, though I confess that many years ago when we had sheep, I did manage a weak indigo vat with urine by using the skirtings off our fleeces.  It worked and the colors were very fast. It also smelled to high heaven.   Definitely an outside project.

After indigo, we've got two more dyes to do and then we've been tossing around the idea of doing an overdye day where we can play with dyeing things in one color in the morning, and then overdyeing them in another dye in the afternoon.    We'll keep you posted.