9 Degrees of Yarn and Me: natural dying

Today was devoted to the wonderful Indigo. We learned about the different kinds of indigo: Natural, Synthetic, and "Instant"; discussing the pro's and con's for each. I totally need to plant some Japanese Indigo plants in the backyard...

We prepared an Indigo Stock Solution using powdered Natural Indigo, "Spectralite" (Thiourea Dioxide) as the Reducing agent, and Soda Ash as the Alkali. Then we learned about "waiting". It's this crazy thing where you sit around and eventually something happens...you don't even always know when.

After the waiting was up, about 20 minutes, we added some of the Stock Solution to a large pot of water, stirred a bit, and did some more "waiting". Once the waiting was over with we checked theheat, color, and the pH and added Alkali and Reducing Agent accordingly to achieve:

1) Temperature (around 110 F)
2) Color (lookin for that Grass Green)
3) pH (Wool about 9.5~10)

All of the Dying Stars aligned and we began the dipping! We did once pass of over dye on all of the colors we had done yesterday. My Favorite is totally the over dyed Cutch, beautiful soft green. Holding the yarn in the dye pot for 3 minutes isn't so bad, but doing more then one skien at a time is totally the way to go!

End Product: Overdye and Straight Indigo Yarns

Well the class ended, i learned a lot, and can't wait to get home and start bringing even more crafty stuff into my home/life...They're SOOO pretty!!!!

Today, Day One of the Natural Dyes class in Taos. I think I've found an additional creative outlet. The first day was tons of fun. We made a mordant of Alum with Cream of Tartar, soaked the fiber, and prepared 6 different natural dye baths in mason jars for the small skeins of wool. We worked with: Madder, Marigold, Cochineal, Cutch, Logwood, Brazilwood, and Osage Orange.

It's interesting how different each plant dye stuffs needed to be prepared. From using an electric blender to chop up the Madder to the instant mix and go of the Cutch. So far the Logwood is my favorite; beautifully rich blues and purples. A tie for second goes to Marigold and the Cochineal. Yes, yes, i know...the Cochineal is bright magenta; but i'm drawn to it. I think it's because it's SOOOO super concentrated in the final form.

Dye Baths - Getting ready for some fiber

After getting all of our mini skeins through the dye baths we pulled out one of each color to run though an Iron shift. Neat! Who knew that Iron could have such an effect on color, "Saddening" as Lisel called it, all of the colors to a softer shade. Only one was drastically changed - Marigold. I now know where 60's olive green comes from.