Recently I went with members of the Bedfordshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers to spend a pleasant evening admiring alpacas. These particular alpacas belong to David Titmuss, the son of one of our members, Toni Titmuss, and David and his wife had kindly invited us to visit their farm for one of our meetings. The early evening sunshine bathed everything in a warm glow and the alpacas were happy to be photographed, although they quickly lost interest if required to pose for too long.

The natural colours of the alpacas vary from white, cream and beige through various shades of rust and brown to almost black, and all these colours are lovely. The fleece can be extremely soft and a pleasure to handspin. Of course, as a dyer, I was interested in testing some dyes on white alpaca fleece, so I got my dyepots ready for a few experiments on some of my skeins of handspun alpaca.

All the skeins were mordanted in alum. The dyes used are, from left to right: 1 weld, 2 weld + iron, 3 madder, 4 madder + washing soda, 5 madder exhaust, 6 coreopsis flowers, 7 coreopsis flowers + washing soda, 8 brazilwood, 9 brazilwood + washing soda, 10 Phaeolus schweinitzii fungus, 11 Phaeolus schweinitzii + iron, 12 Exhaust of 11, 13 Cortinarius sanguineus fungus, 14 Cortinarius sanguineus fungus + washing soda, 15 Pisolithus tinctorius fungus

In general, I was pleased with the depth of colour I achieved. However, as alpaca tends to be more “hairy” than sheep’s fleece, and less “woolly”, the colours are probably less saturated than those achieved on sheep’s wool. One other thing I learned about working with alpaca is the importance of washing the fleece very well before spinning and dyeing it. When spinning sheep’s fleece, I often soak the sorted fleece overnight to get rid of any dirt, then spin “in the grease” and wash well afterwards and before mordanting or dyeing. This method proved less successful with alpaca. I found the grease was difficult to wash out after spinning and this caused patchy results from some of the dyebaths. I got much better results with alpaca fleece that had been well washed before spinning. After spinning, I washed the skeins again and then mordanted and dyed them.

Recently I managed to acquire a selection of fungi, mainly purchased through Leena in Finland, who either had some for sale herself or gave me the details of a supplier. Since then I have been once again exploring the wonderful world of colours from mushrooms. The photo below shows the range of shades I’ve achieved so far.

I tested each fungus using alum-mordanted and unmordanted wool and used washing soda (alkaline) and iron modifiers. I limited my tests to these two modifiers only, partly in order to reduce the number of samples and partly because, in my experience, these are the most useful modifiers. Also, as copper is toxic I try to avoid it where possible.

In my next post I’ll give details of the various fungi I used and the colours I obtained from each.

Several weeks ago I was sent some more extracts to try out. This time they came from Debbie Bamford (www.mulberrydyer.co.uk). They were extracts of Brazilwood and Chestnut and also one labelled “Green”. I have tried extracts of brazilwood and chestnut  in the past, and also one from another supplier labelled “Green”, but it’s always useful to be able to try others. Brazilwood extract was in fact on the market about 20 years ago, both as a powder and as a type of resin,  and I used it then. However, when I supplied natural dyes by mail-order, it was interesting to notice how reluctant dyers were to buy the extracts instead of the dyes in their plant form, even when I pointed out that the extracts would actually work out cheaper because they go such a long way. Now, of course, dyes in extract form have become very popular, although some dyers still prefer to process their own dyes from plant to dyepot.

Brazilwood gives lovely reds and a brilliant purple when used with a washing soda modifier and I was very pleased with the results from this extract. I was interested to see that the acidic modifier produced very little change in shade, especially as, when used with brazilwood in its plant form, it usually gives a bright orange. Brazilwood is not as lightfast as the other red dyes, madder and cochineal, but I sometimes use brazilwood over madder-dyed fibres to increase the brilliance of the colours. A little brazilwood extract added to a madder extract dyebath should give good results, although I haven’t tried it yet.

Brazilwood samples (alum mordant)         From top to bottom: no modifier, acidic modifier, alkaline modifier, iron modifier

 Note: all samples on wool yarn

 Chestnut gives soft brown shades and deep grey when used with an iron modifier. As it is rich in tannin, it can also be a useful plant mordant for vegetable fibres and silk. “Green” gave an interesting range of shades and I was particularly intrigued by what happened with a washing soda modifier. (See photo below). The only thing I find slightly irritating is that when an extract is simply labelled “Green”, or given a name such as “Moody Blues”, I have no idea which plants have been used in its production. Of course, I understand that manufacturers don’t want to give away trade secrets, so I’m prepared to cope with my irritation and use the extract anyway. I do keep telling myself that I should stop asking so many questions and just enjoy using the products but still……………………..

                                                                                                                                                  This shows the “Green” wool samples on the left & the Chestnut wool samples on the right.  The order of samples with each dye is: A & B with no modifier, A & B + alkali, A & B+ iron

NOTE: A = no mordant & B = alum mordant.