One of my first experiences of using alkanet root (Alkanna tinctoria) was when I was asked to dye wool for making kneelers for a church in Wales. They wanted blue and a warm grey and from the dyed samples I sent they chose the colours from indigo and alkanet root. I was a little apprehensive, as I know alkanet doesn’t have the best reputation for light fastness, but as the kneelers would not be in much sunlight in their positions in the church and the customer was adamant she wanted to go ahead, I decided to risk it. This was about twenty years ago and as they were delighted with the results when the kneelers were completed and I haven’t had any complaints since, I assume the colours have remained pleasing.
In our search for lavender and purple colours for South Downs Yarn, preferably using dyes grown in the garden or harvested locally, Louise and I decided to experiment with alkanet root. It is important to use dyer’s alkanet (Alkanna tinctoria) and not plants commonly called alkanet, such as common alkanet (Anchusa officinalis) or green alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens), which do not have the dye properties of dyer’s alkanet. It is not easy to source plants or seeds of Alkanna tinctoria, so we used dried dyestuff from France.
According to what I had read, the red pigment in alkanet root is not water soluble and can only be extracted using something with a high alcohol content, such as rubbing alcohol.
NB Great caution must be exercised when using alcohol, as it can easily catch fire and should not be used near a naked flame. Rubbing alcohol also has a rather unpleasant smell and gives off unpleasant fumes, so it may be advisable to wear a face mask to avoid inhaling these fumes.
Some references indicated an alum mordant should be used so, although I usually use alkanet without a mordant, I mordanted some wool with alum ready for the tests. I steeped the alkanet root in rubbing alcohol for a week and the liquid became a deep red, which seemed full of promise.
Above: the alkanet and rubbing alcohol solution ready for use
I strained the liquid into a dye pot, added more water and gently simmered the mordanted wool in this solution for about 30 minutes. Initially it looked as if the red colour would be absorbed by the fibres but sadly this was not the case and when the wool was removed from the dye bath it was green and definitely not red or pink or purple. Although this was a pleasant colour, it was not what I had been aiming to achieve, so naturally I was rather disappointed.
Above: the green skein produced from the alcohol-extraction alkanet dye bath (Photo courtesy of Louise Spong)
My next step was to try and work out where I had gone wrong. Following further study in reference books, I discovered that some dyers recommend keeping the temperature of the dye bath well below a simmer, so my mistake may have been in allowing the dye bath to simmer. Next time I will keep the temperature low and hope for better results. However, it will be a while before I try again with rubbing alcohol, as the unpleasant odour remained in the house for about a week afterwards. (I realise it was not sensible to use rubbing alcohol indoors and I will use it outdoors next time.)
I wanted to try some more experiments with alkanet, this time without extracting the colour in rubbing alcohol, so I decided to follow a recipe I found in Gill Dalby’s book Fast or Fugitive. After simmering the alkanet root in water to extract the colour, I added a little clear vinegar, stirred well and then added the wool samples, both unmordanted and alum-mordanted.
I also did a further test, this time without adding vinegar to the dye bath, and I applied an alkaline modifier, using soda ash, after dyeing.
The results of these experiments confirmed what I had already discovered when dyeing with alkanet, namely that the results can be very variable and much seems to depend on the mineral content of the water used for dyeing. When I travelled around the country teaching workshops, I sometimes used alkanet and I could never predict what shades and tones of colour would emerge from the dye pot, as the colours varied considerably from area to area.
The photo below shows the results of my tests.
From left to right:
Skeins 1 & 2: dye bath + vinegar, no mordant and alum mordant
Skeins 3 & 4: dye bath followed by alkaline modifier, no mordant and alum mordant
The first skein has a pink tone, although I wouldn’t describe the colour as pink; the second and fourth skeins (both alum-mordanted) have a green tinge and it would seem that alum brings out the green tones.
Louise Spong of South Downs Yarn also did her own experiments with alkanet root and used cheap vodka as the alcohol to extract the colour. She used de-ionised water and steeped the roots for two weeks before using them. After my failure to achieve purple when I simmered the dye bath, Louise wisely kept the temperature of the dye bath below a simmer and she produced a pretty lavender colour. Success at last! (But sadly not mine.)
Louise’s lavender skeins of South Downs Yarn (photo courtesy of Louise Spong)
Solar Dye Pots
/in General Dye InformationThis summer, as usual, I set up some solar dye pots with my granddaughter, who is now 8 years old and becoming quite an experienced natural dyer.
In a way, I feel the term “solar dyeing” is a little misleading, because many dyes, particularly leaves and flowers, will give their colours quite well without heat, including heat from the sun. Indeed, in many British summers the sun rarely appears and when it does it often gives very little heat, but the dye pots still produce colour. I have even had good results from pots set up with dye and fibres in the depths of winter, including those winters when some of the solutions have frozen during the process.
For these dye pots, I simply put the dyestuff and an alum-mordanted skein in the jars and filled them up with water. For colour variations, I added iron nails to some of the jars and then made sure all the ingredients in each jar were below the surface of the liquid. As the weather was warm, I used cold water but adding hot water to start with will speed up the process if the weather is cool. I checked the development of colour on the skeins at regular intervals and removed the skeins when I was satisfied with the depth of colour achieved. I then added a second skein and repeated the process. The water may occasionally need topping up but otherwise all one has to do is wait for the results.
The above pots contain, from left to right: orange cosmos and coreopsis flowers, deep red hollyhock flowers and aster flowers
These pots contain, from left to right: tomato leaves, calendula flowers with iron nails and mugwort leaves with iron nails.
Some of the pots (eg. cosmos and aster) had already produced bright colours in a week or so, while others (eg. helenium dead heads and tomato leaves) took longer to develop a reasonable depth of colour.
Below are some of the results on alum-mordanted wool .
From left to right: aster flowers (1 week), orange cosmos & coreopsis flowers, helenium dead heads
From left to right: deep pink hollyhock flowers, orange cosmos & coreopsis flowers (exhaust), calendula flowers + iron nails, aster flowers (2 weeks), mugwort + iron nails, tomato leaves
Note: Although I am reluctant to reveal the disappointing colour from the hollyhocks, I feel I must do so, as I suspect I will not be the only one to have had disappointing results from deep red hollyhock flowers. In general, I tend to use mainly the traditional, reliable dyes, with good fastness properties, especially if I am producing items for sale. I don’t include hollyhock flowers among these reliable dyes, as they can be very fickle in the dye pot; sometimes they give pink and purple shades, sometimes they give soft greens and then at other times they yield only beige and dirty lemon tones. I have tried various methods: freezing them, drying them, applying heat and cool dyeing and it seems no method can be guaranteed to regularly produce pinks or purples. So the colours from hollyhock flowers shown in my book, “Wild Colour”, are sadly not the end of the story and I apologise if they have led too many dyers down the road of disappointment. If it is any consolation, it is a road I have also sometimes traversed!
Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft: Ethel Mairet Natural Dyeing Project
/in Diary & NewsEthel Mairet (1872 – 1952) was a handloom weaver and dyer and a pioneer of the 20th-century modern craft revival in Britain. She was influential in the development of weaving in the first half of the 20th century and she was an enthusiastic and inspirational teacher, dedicated to passing on to future generations the knowledge and experience gained from her lifetime of experimentation with natural dyes and textiles.
Her first husband was the geologist and art historian, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and with him she spent some time at Charles Robert Ashbee’s community of artists and craftspeople in Chipping Campden. The couple also travelled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and India, where they collected textiles and Ethel Mairet learned about handweaving. In 1913 she married her second husband, Philip Mairet, and they established a joint home and studio near Stratford-on-Avon. In 1914 she was visited by Gandhi, who knew of her work in Ceylon and was interested in using simple textile techniques in India. In 1916 she visited Eric Gill and the Guild of St Joseph & St Dominic in Ditchling in Sussex. This was a Roman Catholic community, based on the idea of the medieval guild, which existed for the protection and the promotion of the work of its members, who included Eric Gill, Hilary Pepler, Valentine KilBride and George Maxwell. Ethel Mairet was so impressed that she decided to set up her weaving studio in Ditchling and during the 1930s and 1940s she trained people in weaving and natural dyeing in her studio at her home “Gospels”. In 1939 she became the first woman Royal Designer for Industry (RDI).
In common with many of her Ditchling contemporaries, Ethel Mairet shared the view that the sustainability of craft lay in communicating with a new generation of practitioners and between 1939 and 1947 she taught at Brighton Art School, favouring experimentation rather than technical expertise. Her book on natural dyeing, “A Book of Vegetable Dyes”, was published in 1916; it was one of the first British books on natural dyeing to reach a wide audience and was so successful that it ran to five editions (including a version published by Hilary Pepler’s St Dominic’s Press).
Although some recipes in “Vegetable Dyes” include chemicals considered unsuitable for use in today’s safety-conscious and environmentally-concerned world, the book remains a classic work which still has much to offer the natural dyer.
Ethel Mairet also published books on handweaving, including “Handweaving Today” (1939) and “Handweaving and Education” (1942).
To mark the centenary of the first edition of “Vegetable Dyes”, from September 17th 2016 Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft will have an exhibition of Ethel Mairet’s dyeing and weaving and all five volumes of the book. In addition, the museum has launched a project inviting dyers and craftspeople from all over the world to reproduce many of the recipes in the book. The project runs from September 17th 2016 to April 16th 2017 and anyone interested in taking part can obtain full details from the museum’s website: www.ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk
I have dyed 10 skeins for the project and they are shown in the photo below. In each pair the first skein is cotton and the second skein is linen. All were mordanted with 5% alum acetate.
From left to right: brazilwood, sanderswood, lac, quercitron, Saxon Blue + quercitron
More photos of the garden
/in The Dyer's GardenA month has passed since I last posted photos of the garden, so here are a few more.
The blue globes of echinops are so welcome as the summer progresses
Meadowsweet is a lovely plant which smells delicious; I will also use it in the dye pot later.
I wish I knew the name of this rose, which was here when we moved in and looks so lovely against the ivy.
The hot shades of helenium are always a summer joy
Saw-wort nearly ready to harvest for the dye pot
Feverfew and Lychnis coronaria – so pretty together
The scent of lavender fills the air and the bees love it
Dyer’s broom just before harvesting
The only dyer’s chamomile flowers I managed to save from the slugs & snails
Goldenrod is always welcome in my garden – and in the dye pot
Hypericum flowers profusely and spreads happily. I sometimes use the prunings in the dye pot and they give pretty yellows – as if I don’t have enough sources of yellow!
Dyeing with safflower petals
/in Dyeing Tips & Recipes, General Dye InformationRecently I was asked to dye some samples using safflower petals from Nepal. The dyed samples are to be exhibited at Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden as part of an exhibition highlighting the flora of Nepal.
Safflower is a thistle-like plant and nowadays it is grown mainly for the oil from its seeds, which is used in salad oils and margarine. It is also occasionally referred to as “bastard saffron” because it is sometimes used as a substitute for the true saffron from the stigmas of an autumn-flowering crocus. Stems of safflower are often sold for dried flower arrangements.
Safflower has been used by dyers for centuries. It was one of the dyes identified on early Egyptian textiles and in the East it was also used to make pigments and cosmetics. Safflower is remarkable because both a yellow and a red dye can be extracted from its petals.
The photo above shows a range of yellows and reds from safflower petals.
The red dye was used from early times in India and Japan to dye cotton and silk shades of vibrant pinks and orange-red, which tend to fade with the passage of time and frequent exposure to light. The yellow dye, although deep and brilliant at first, also has relatively poor fastness. The red dye from safflower was used to dye the tapes tied around legal documents – hence the term “Red Tape”.
To dye with safflower, use at least equal weights of dyestuff and fibres. (Stronger colours will result if you use twice the weight of the fibres to be dyed.) No mordant is required for pinks and reds. Although no mordant is necessary for yellows, using an alum mordant will improve fastness.
Note: the same petals can be used for both yellow and red.
The yellow dye can be applied to animal and vegetable fibres. The red dye, which is applied at room temperature, is suitable for cotton, linen and silk, but not for wool, which does not take up the red colour.
Dyeing reds with safflower is not straightforward, so below are some details.
First of all the yellow dye must be extracted from the petals. It is advisable to wear rubber gloves or your hands will become stained. Tie the petals up in a piece of muslin or old net curtaining and immerse this bag of petals in a bucket or bowl of cool water and leave to soak for a while. Then start to press and squeeze the bag to extract the yellow dye. Remove the bag from time to time to check how much colour is still running out. When the water in the bucket is strongly coloured and the petals no longer yield much yellow dye, squeeze out the excess water from the bag. Remove the petals and put them into a pan or plastic container and reserve the yellow dye for a dye bath later.
To extract and then apply the red dye, first cover the petals in your container with enough cold water for your subsequent dye bath. Then add enough washing soda to bring the solution to pH 11 and turn the petals reddish-brown. Leave for about 1 hour, then squeeze the petals well and strain off the liquid. Don’t throw away the petals because the same petals can be used again for paler pinks, following the same processes.
Then add enough clear vinegar or lemon juice to the strained-off liquid to bring the solution to pH 6. It should now be bright red and ready for use.
Do not heat the dye liquid, but add the fibres and leave them to soak for several hours or overnight. Rinse well and dry away from direct sunlight.
Silk treated in the red dye bath becomes coral or orange, rather than pink. This is because the acidic dye liquid that contains the red dye also contains a second yellow dye, which is taken up by silk but not by cotton.
The photo above shows from the top: coral/orange on silk and red on cotton
To produce pink shades on silk an extra procedure must be followed. First add some cotton fibres to the red dye liquid as above and leave them for several hours or overnight to absorb the red dye.
Then discharge this red dye from the cotton fibres back into a solution by placing the dyed cotton into an alkaline solution of water and washing soda at pH11. Soak the cotton in this solution for about 30 minutes or until the solution becomes red.
Then remove the cotton, acidify the solution to pH6 as described above and add the silk fibres. Leave them to soak until they have become pink.
The photo above shows pinks on silk after the extra step.
Dyeing yellow with safflower petals is much simpler. Put the dye liquid into a dye pot, add the fibres to be dyed and heat to simmering point. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes then turn off the heat & allow the fibres to cool down in the dye bath. Then remove them and wash and rinse them.
This photo shows a range of yellows from safflower on wool (top), silk (centre) and cotton (bottom)
My garden in Summer
/in UncategorizedEach year my garden seems to be different, with some old favourites returning and some new arrivals bringing fresh joys.
Below is a rose (Wedding Day, I think), which comes over from our neighbour’s garden. It rambles through the branches of the eucalyptus in the front garden and fills the air with delicious perfume that penetrates through the open windows to fill the bedrooms with fragrance. The bees love it.
I don’t know the name of the lovely pink climbing rose shown below. It was in the garden when we moved in six years ago and has beautiful delicate flowers, which sadly have little perfume. It looks so attractive rambling through the ivy and this is the corner of the garden where we often photograph the dyed skeins of South Downs Yarn.
Each year I look forward to the annual pelargoniums, with their brilliant reds. (I always seem to choose the reds, rarely the pink or white ones.) Another bonus is that they are rarely attacked by slugs and snails.
How I love the combination of the brilliant orange from the calendula and the blue of this hardy geranium.
Every year I look forward to the return of the hot reds and oranges of the helenium flowers.
Below are the yellow spires of lysimachia punctata with feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) in the foreground.
My small dye garden continues to flourish, as the photos below show.
Here dyer’s broom (Genista tinctoria) is just coming into flower on the left, with hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo) on the right and in the foreground climbing through the obelisk
This year my wild madder (Rubia peregrina) is producing tiny flowers, which I hope will later produce some seeds.
Just visible below on the lower left are the yellow flowers of lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum) with saw-wort (Serratula tinctoria) in bud on the right.
Alkanet Root
/in Dyeing Tips & RecipesOne of my first experiences of using alkanet root (Alkanna tinctoria) was when I was asked to dye wool for making kneelers for a church in Wales. They wanted blue and a warm grey and from the dyed samples I sent they chose the colours from indigo and alkanet root. I was a little apprehensive, as I know alkanet doesn’t have the best reputation for light fastness, but as the kneelers would not be in much sunlight in their positions in the church and the customer was adamant she wanted to go ahead, I decided to risk it. This was about twenty years ago and as they were delighted with the results when the kneelers were completed and I haven’t had any complaints since, I assume the colours have remained pleasing.
In our search for lavender and purple colours for South Downs Yarn, preferably using dyes grown in the garden or harvested locally, Louise and I decided to experiment with alkanet root. It is important to use dyer’s alkanet (Alkanna tinctoria) and not plants commonly called alkanet, such as common alkanet (Anchusa officinalis) or green alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens), which do not have the dye properties of dyer’s alkanet. It is not easy to source plants or seeds of Alkanna tinctoria, so we used dried dyestuff from France.
According to what I had read, the red pigment in alkanet root is not water soluble and can only be extracted using something with a high alcohol content, such as rubbing alcohol.
NB Great caution must be exercised when using alcohol, as it can easily catch fire and should not be used near a naked flame. Rubbing alcohol also has a rather unpleasant smell and gives off unpleasant fumes, so it may be advisable to wear a face mask to avoid inhaling these fumes.
Some references indicated an alum mordant should be used so, although I usually use alkanet without a mordant, I mordanted some wool with alum ready for the tests. I steeped the alkanet root in rubbing alcohol for a week and the liquid became a deep red, which seemed full of promise.
Above: the alkanet and rubbing alcohol solution ready for use
I strained the liquid into a dye pot, added more water and gently simmered the mordanted wool in this solution for about 30 minutes. Initially it looked as if the red colour would be absorbed by the fibres but sadly this was not the case and when the wool was removed from the dye bath it was green and definitely not red or pink or purple. Although this was a pleasant colour, it was not what I had been aiming to achieve, so naturally I was rather disappointed.
Above: the green skein produced from the alcohol-extraction alkanet dye bath (Photo courtesy of Louise Spong)
My next step was to try and work out where I had gone wrong. Following further study in reference books, I discovered that some dyers recommend keeping the temperature of the dye bath well below a simmer, so my mistake may have been in allowing the dye bath to simmer. Next time I will keep the temperature low and hope for better results. However, it will be a while before I try again with rubbing alcohol, as the unpleasant odour remained in the house for about a week afterwards. (I realise it was not sensible to use rubbing alcohol indoors and I will use it outdoors next time.)
I wanted to try some more experiments with alkanet, this time without extracting the colour in rubbing alcohol, so I decided to follow a recipe I found in Gill Dalby’s book Fast or Fugitive. After simmering the alkanet root in water to extract the colour, I added a little clear vinegar, stirred well and then added the wool samples, both unmordanted and alum-mordanted.
I also did a further test, this time without adding vinegar to the dye bath, and I applied an alkaline modifier, using soda ash, after dyeing.
The results of these experiments confirmed what I had already discovered when dyeing with alkanet, namely that the results can be very variable and much seems to depend on the mineral content of the water used for dyeing. When I travelled around the country teaching workshops, I sometimes used alkanet and I could never predict what shades and tones of colour would emerge from the dye pot, as the colours varied considerably from area to area.
The photo below shows the results of my tests.
From left to right:
Skeins 1 & 2: dye bath + vinegar, no mordant and alum mordant
Skeins 3 & 4: dye bath followed by alkaline modifier, no mordant and alum mordant
The first skein has a pink tone, although I wouldn’t describe the colour as pink; the second and fourth skeins (both alum-mordanted) have a green tinge and it would seem that alum brings out the green tones.
Louise Spong of South Downs Yarn also did her own experiments with alkanet root and used cheap vodka as the alcohol to extract the colour. She used de-ionised water and steeped the roots for two weeks before using them. After my failure to achieve purple when I simmered the dye bath, Louise wisely kept the temperature of the dye bath below a simmer and she produced a pretty lavender colour. Success at last! (But sadly not mine.)
Louise’s lavender skeins of South Downs Yarn (photo courtesy of Louise Spong)
Dyeing large quantities of woollen skeins
/in Diary & News, General Dye InformationA friend asked for help as she wanted to dye one kilo of handspun woollen skeins all the same colour. Dyeing such a large quantity of fibre is not easy, unless one has suitable equipment. I don’t have a pot large enough which could be heated and I no longer have a large Burco boiler, so the only option seemed to be to use a plastic container and opt for cool dyeing. Cool mordanting with alum is not a problem, as long as the fibres remain in the cool mordant bath for at least 24 hours and preferably longer. However, cool dyeing limits to some extent the dyes which can be used, as not all dyes can be successfully applied without heat.
The colour my friend chose was the pale green/yellow shown in the top sample below:
To achieve this colour, I decided to apply an alum mordant and then dye with weld extract, followed by indigo. I already have a large plastic container I keep for alum mordanting and fortunately it was just large enough for the quantity of wool, so I filled the container with cool water, added the alum mordant and left the yarn in the mordant bath for a couple of days.
I decided to use a large plastic garden trug as my dye pot, so I dissolved the weld extract in boiling water and added it to the cool water in the plastic trug. I stirred well and then added the wetted-out yarn and allowed it to steep in the dye bath for about 24 hours, by which time it had become a suitable shade of yellow and was evenly dyed.
The final step was to make an indigo vat, also in the large plastic garden trug. The wool was then over-dyed in the indigo vat.
Although the trug seemed large enough for the quantity of wool being dyed with weld, I think the wool probably needed even more space in the indigo vat, as the results were somewhat variegated. However, the colour on the sample was also variegated and my friend was pleased with the results of our labours, so all was well.
The photo below shows the dyed skeins:
I then decided to dye a further kilo of wool, this time Romney Marsh fleece from local sheep, processed into yarn at Diamond Fibres in East Sussex. I wanted a colour suitable for a jacket that I could wear with most things and as I would have to dye without heat I chose to use buckthorn bark, which responds well to cool dyeing and which would, I hoped, give a caramel colour.
I simmered up about 200gms of buckthorn bark and then strained the dye liquid into the water in the trug. I added about 1 teaspoon of walnut hull extract in the hope that this might make the shade slightly browner in tone. (However, my initial feeling that walnut might not dye well without heat probably proved correct, as there is little evidence of any walnut influence in the final colour.) I added the wool skeins, which absorbed the dye more quickly than I had expected and I removed them after about one hour, rinsed and washed them and then left them to dry. These skeins also appear variegated but not this time because the trug was too small for the yarn. Buckthorn bark tends to change colour a little when left to dry in the light and it is important to open up the skeins and move them around, so they dry evenly. However, because the skeins were so dense and thick it was more difficult to open them up, so the final colour effect is variegated. Fortunately, I like this effect anyway and, although I had been aiming for a more caramel tone, I am also pleased with the colour.
The final results.
Further alkaline extraction method tests and some puzzling results
/in Diary & News, General Dye InformationFollowing on from my recent alkaline extraction method experiments, I decided to try the method used by Krista Vajanto in her dissertation and described in my post of March 8th. So before adding a further set of samples, I left the dye baths to become acidic. This proved more difficult than I had expected, as the pH decreased a little and then remained stubbornly at around pH9 and refused to become more acidic. After a couple of weeks, I decided to add another set of samples anyway, which I left to steep for about 4 weeks. The dye baths looked very strongly coloured and I was hoping for well-dyed samples. Indeed, on removal from the dye baths the samples appeared deep in colour but most of the colour washed off, leaving the samples considerably paler than the first set, which had been in the alkaline dye bath for only 2 weeks.
I really don’t know how to interpret these surprising results. If the dye baths had been pH7 or below, I would have assumed that the acidic conditions had made the samples paler. This would have been in line with results from acidic modifiers which often result in the samples becoming paler. But in this case the dye baths were still alkaline, although less so than for the first samples. However, the dye baths had become slimy and viscous and I wonder if this is a sign that fermentation was taking place and the fermentation caused the colours to become paler?
This photo shows, from the top: birch bark, alder bark, white willow bark, tormentil root, with 4 samples for each. For each dye, the pair of samples on the left is from the first dye bath (2 weeks) and the pair on the right is from the second dye bath (4 weeks). In each pair, the top sample is alum-mordanted and the lower sample is unmordanted. The photo quite clearly shows how much paler the samples are from the second dye bath. Very puzzling!
Workshop at Plumpton College
/in Diary & News, Dyeing Tips & RecipesEarlier in March I taught a workshop for my dear friend Sue Craig and the students on her “Grow Your Own Colour” course at Plumpton College Brighton. Although I no longer lead workshops myself because of my physical limitations, I am always happy to work with Sue and her students because Sue provides all the materials and equipment and prepares everything in advance and she and her students do everything that is required as far as the hard physical work is concerned. I just sit and talk a lot and give the orders, which suits me very well!
This course was “Marvellous Madder”, which showcases the remarkable colour properties of this amazing dye plant. Last time I did this workshop I attempted too much and rather over-worked the students, so we decided to limit it to 26 wool samples this time.
We used the madder as follows:
Use about 80% madder and wash the madder pieces in cold water to remove some of the yellow and brown pigments. Then pour boiling water over the washed madder pieces and leave them to steep for about 45 seconds. Then strain this liquid into a dye pot and repeat this process twice more. This forms the first “pour-off” dye bath. (See second photo below) NOTE: I usually make this “pour-off” dye bath because it helps to use up some of the yellow and brown pigments that might not have been washed out and that can make the red colour from the main dye bath too dull or brown.
Then simmer the same madder dye pieces for about 30 minutes, strain off the dye solution and leave to cool slightly. Then add the fibres and leave them to steep for about 45 minutes to one hour. If necessary, the madder dye bath can be heated gently but keep it well below simmering point. NOTE: madder can safely be simmered to extract the dye colour but it is better to keep the temperature below simmering point after the fibres have been added, otherwise the colour may become too brown in tone. The same madder pieces can be simmered at least once more to make a further dye bath; indeed, the same madder pieces can often be re-used two or three times. So if we had had time to do this at the workshop, we could have doubled or even trebled the number of samples we achieved.
After dyeing, the samples were modified. (Instructions for making and using colour modifiers can be found in my books.)
As so often happens at workshops where time is limited, the colours achieved were not as deep and intense as I would have liked, although we did achieve a wide range of shades. Had we been able to allow the fibres to remain for longer in the dye bath, we would have had some much richer reds.
This photo shows 24 wool samples.
Each group contains a sample of no mordant, alum mordant, tannin (oak gall) mordant and rhubarb leaf base, in that order. From left to right the groups are: no modifier, acidic (vinegar) modifier, alkaline (soda ash) modifier, copper modifier, iron modifier, iron modifier followed by alkaline modifier (2 modifiers applied in succession)
These samples, also wool, were dyed in the dye liquid poured off when preparing the madder dye bath. From left to right: alum mordant, no mordant
Sue (left) and I obviously enjoyed ourselves!
More experiments with the alkaline extraction method
/in Dyeing Tips & Recipes, General Dye InformationI am very interested in the dyeing techniques of the past and recently I read Krista Vajanto’s dissertation on Dyes & Dyeing Methods in Late Iron Age Finland, http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-51-1790-8, which contains some interesting details about dyes and possible methods for achieving reds (or reddish colours) in areas where madder and madder-related plants were not available. I corresponded with Krista before her dissertation was published and conducted some of my own tests, which I wrote about in my book A Heritage of Colour. Since then, I have been able to obtain some more information from reading Krista’s dissertation and I have started to experiment further.
One method that would seem to have been used in the Iron Age in northern Europe is what Krista calls “the fermentation of tannins”. Apparently tannin-rich plant materials such as barks and the roots of tormentil (Potentilla erecta) will give red or rust colours if treated in wood ash water or a similar source of alkali. This is very similar to what I call the alkaline extraction method, which I use mainly with madder root and buckthorn bark. In my method, the barks or roots are soaked in wood ash water with no application of heat and the fibres are dyed in this alkaline solution, usually without application of heat or occasionally at a very low temperature. After some time, fermentation will begin and the dye solution will start to become neutral and then acidic.
From my experiments using this method with madder root and buckthorn bark, I have found that if the pH becomes too acidic the red colours become more orange or rust in tone so, in order to obtain true reds, it is important to keep adding alkali to maintain a pH of at least 9. The method Krista used for her experiments with the tannin fermentation method differs somewhat from mine; she fermented the plant materials before adding the fibres, rather than adding the fibres to the wood ash water at the same time as the plant materials. In her dissertation Krista describes how, in her tests, the plant materials were steeped for four weeks in the wood ash water, which started off at about pH10, and then as the time passed the pH values decreased from alkaline to neutral and then to acidic and pH6 as the plant materials fermented. The fibres were then added to the dye liquid and steeped for two weeks at room temperature. So the main difference between the two methods is that Krista does not add the fibres to the dye solution until it has fermented and become acidic, whereas I add the fibres together with the dyestuff and maintain an alkaline pH while the fibres are steeping in the dye pot and I do not allow the solution to become acidic if I am aiming for reds.
For my latest experiments I decided to first try my method and then the one described by Krista. So I set up some dye baths in glass jars, using alder bark, birch bark, white willow bark and tormentil root. For comparison, I also conducted the same test with buckthorn bark, which I have already used in several tests using the alkaline extraction method. (See my 2013 post Buckthorn Bark)
I half-filled the jars with wood ash water and then added the dye material and wool samples.
The dye liquid became deep red after a day or so and I checked the pH of the solutions every day and added more alkali (wood ash water or soda ash) as necessary to maintain a pH of between 10 and 11.
The samples were finally removed after two weeks. Although they appeared deep red/pink as they were removed from the dye pot, the red colour gradually disappeared as the samples were rinsed and washed, leaving much softer, paler shades. This was interesting, as the colour remains red when using this method with buckthorn bark and does not rinse out.
Below is a photo of the colours achieved. (I would not describe any of the colours as “red”.) There are 2 skeins for each dye; the first skein in each pair is alum mordanted and the second skein is unmordanted.
From left to right: birch bark, tormentil root, white willow bark, alder bark.
I will now leave the dye solutions to become acidic and ferment before I add a further set of samples to each dye pot. Once my next tests are completed, I will write a further post on this topic.
For interest, below is a photo of skeins dyed in an alkaline solution of buckthorn bark, following the same method as described in the tests above. The dye bath was kept at around pH10 to pH11 and these skeins are definitely red.