Natural Dyeing: Day Three

All the colors we created over the course of
three days. Pretty impressive, huh?

The third day started with an iron bath for 1/3 of the fibers we already dyed. Iron is interesting, it shifts the color without adding dye, but since Chris and I already experienced the color shifting process the day before by changing the pH on our bath it seemed a little less magical. The iron post bath shifted our colors a bit to the rusty brown side which gave a nice depth to our palette.

After the iron post bath it was time to move on to indigo. Indigo was really the most exciting part of the workshop and of the dyes we used, it is the most complicated and thus tricky to go at on your own. There are two ways to prepare the indigo dye. The first and more traditional method is to create a natural ferment vat which takes 3-10 days to develop. The second method and the one we used is the chemical vat which uses lye and thiourea dioxide to get the same result in a shorter time.

Our indigo solution. The top layer is called indigo blue, it has been oxidized and won't dye. The green layer below is the indigo white which is what you use for dyeing.

Once our indigo was mixed and ready to go we added it to the dyepot and started dyeing. Again, indigo is very sensitive to oxygen so when dyeing you have to take extra precaution not to introduce extra oxygen into the vat. This meant we dyed one at a time and had to be very careful as we removed the fiber from the dyepot. When the fibers first come out of the dyepot they tend to be a greener blue which develops into a darker, truer blue as it combines with the oxygen in the air. Also, instead of changing the solution to get darker colors, with indigo you do multiple dips.

Dagmar carefully removing the first dyed indigo fiber from the vat, notice the greenish color as it comes out of the vat.

After a lesson on properly using the indigo vat we were ready to overdye our skeins from the day before which left us with a beautiful range of blues, purples, and greens that our palette was previously lacking.

All the colors created by the iron post bath and the indigo dip hanging out on the line to dry.

 After the indigo dyeing was complete, it was back to the studio to create labels for all of the colors we made  and to separate and distribute the 900 skeins to the group. In the end we each had the 75 planned skeins along with a few unplanned experimental skeins.

All of our dyed skeins tagged, labeled, and arranged buffet-style.

Natural Dyeing: Day Two

Mordanted yarn waiting to be dyed.

Friday was dye day, all our base yarns were mordanted and ready to go. We did a little math to determine the measurements for our dye solutions and then it was straight to the barn to extract the dyes and start dyeing our fibers. The most important thing I learned about natural dyes was that each one works differently. Some are sensitive to temperature, some are sensitive to oxygen and some, like ours, are highly sensitive to pH levels. Slight variations can give you totally different results so good record keeping is extremely important for replication.

Measuring out the bugs for extracting the dye.

As I mentioned yesterday, Chris and I chose cochineal as our dye matter. For those who don't already know, cochineal is a type of beetle that lives on cactus in South and Central America and produces lots of carminic acid which is used for making the red dye that goes into everything from make-up to M&Ms. Cochineal is a point of debate with vegans and in the past I have avoided it, but when I signed up for this workshop I knew it was one of the materials we would be dealing with and I made the decision to participate at least this once. 

We pulverized the dried beetles in a coffee grinder to make a fine powder.

In the past when I have seen cochineal dyes they have always been in the extract form which is a bright red powder. The cochineal we used for the workshop was in dried beetle form. We measured out the beetles, ground them up in a coffee grinder and extracted the dye on the stove top three times until we had a 15% wog in a 1000mL solution. I won't go into the process, but I will address the smell which was one of the worst things I have ever dealt with. Chris and I had to take turns stirring and breathing and once we were done the smell had permeated our skin, clothing, and hair so much so that we had trouble eating lunch. It was not a pleasant experience.

Between extractions we strained the cochineal through a surgical sponge, resembling a bloody mess and in the end we had 1000mL of dye solution.

Finally, it was time to dye. Cochineal is very sensitive to pH- too much acidity will make the color go warmer and too much alkali will make the color go cooler. For this reason, we used distilled water throughout the entire process to try and control our dye stock. Unfortunately, we still had issue with the color heading into a cooler zone- our lightest version was lavender instead of pink. Chris and I decided to correct this by making a 6% wog solution of cream of tartar and run all of our dyed yarn back through it to warm the color. After we finished (last due to our misadventures in chemistry,) there was still quite a bit of dye left in our pot so both Chris and I decided to mordant some of our own yarn overnight so that we could exhaust the bath the next day.

Marigold heads in the pot. The mesh bag is a 5 gallon paint strainer which makes it easy to remove the flowers from the stock when you are finished. Brilliant.

At the very end of the day, Dagmar pulled out a bag of marigold heads and showed us how to extract the dye from them. If you are looking for an easy dye experience, go for the marigolds. There is no math or chemistry involved and they smell delightful. It was a nice way to finish out the day.

By the end of the second day we had achieved quite a few colors. On the third day we overdyed 1/3 of these with indigo and shifted the color of 1/3 with iron.

Natural Dyeing: Day One

A few months ago, Dianne from Tanglewood Farm mentioned that she was bringing Dagmar Klos, writer of the Dyer's Companion, to her farm to do a workshop on natural dyeing. At the time, I was more interested in sharing the information with my customers who wanted to learn about plant dyes, I had no personal interest in learning what I believed to be such a restrictive method of dyeing. When the workshop was all set up and Dianne sent me the pricing and information on the three-day event- around $200 for three full days of instruction, meals, and 75 mini-skeins of dyed yarn to take home, I couldn't resist signing myself up before passing the information along to my customers (and good thing, the workshop filled fast and ended up with a pretty long waiting list.)

Thursday was the first day of the workshop. We spent the first half of the day in lecture learning about the history of natural dyeing, the materials we were going to use, the different ways of extracting the colors, methods for attaching them to various fibers, the variables that would effect our results, safety guidelines, and resources for further research (being a bit of a bibliophile, I was especially appreciative of the comprehensive bibliography included in our class materials.) Dagmar also pulled out her color wheel of natural dyes and instantly removed any doubt I had about this workshop. In the past when I have looked at natural dyeing methods, the colors always seemed way too dull for my needs. Lots of yellows and browns with lightly saturated versions of other colors, none of which appealed to me. The few brighter, more saturated colors I had seen were achieved using heavy metal mordants which are completely out of the question for me, I would much rather use synthetic dyes that are less damaging to the environment. The colors Dagmar achieved created a full spectrum of tone and hue and without using the heavy metal mordants that I wanted to avoid. Mind blown.

We took a break for lunch and I used this chance to hang out with the cutest gang of alpacas that I have ever seen. After I got my fill of cuteness, I joined the others in the house for lunch. Due to my weird dietary needs, I didn't really expect too much from the meals, which was fine. I got to the kitchen and there was a beautiful spread of fresh veggies and some tomato celery soup from Shaker Town that was among the best soup I have ever had. (The recipe is in their cookbook which I ordered from the library, I plan to make vats and vats of the stuff in the not so distant future.)

After lunch it was back to the studio to sort and bundle the skeins of undyed yarn. There were 12 participants and 75 different colors with 8 color roots so we had to sort 900 mini-skeins into initial groupings of 36 and then the groupings of 36 into groups of 3- it took awhile. After that was finished, we did some math to figure our mordant measurements and then we moved out to the barn to start scouring and mordanting. In the barn, we teamed up and each two person team chose a dye matter to work with. My partner in crime was my friend Chris who yelled out cochineal with the joy and enthusiasm of a five-year-old so thus began our adventures with beetles.