Category: dye plant

Indigo vats and landing in fields

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About twenty years ago I was taking a “commuter flight” – that is a really small plane, brown bag carry-on lunches – from New York City to Washington DC. The two guys in the seats in front of me were swapping air plane stories which always seemed to end with “and then we landed in a field”. This is somewhat like my Indigo vat dyeing experience except that my stories would end with “and then the vat didn’t work”.

indigo vat start 1incorrect indigo vat landing in a field

After my beginners luck Fennel experience Indigo put me in my place. I’ve taken enough extension anthropology and archaeology classses to be aware that textile technology goes really far back in human history. Indigo is one of the more technologically complicated processes – reduction – and I frankly can’t imagine how we came up with it.

(As an aside see Elizabeth Barber’s “Prehistoric Textiles: the development of cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages”. Interesting quotes from angry Sumerian business women proving that freelances have never been paid on time since the dawn of history. And, we have spend alot of time either killing each other or dyeing cloth.)

 Indigo dyed wool and cotton dryingWool and cotton dyed and overdyed with Indigo

Two major mistakes which hopefully will save someone else time and tears.

First: use the right chemicals. I misktanly used Urea instead of Spectralite. (Vat doesn’t work.)

Second: DON’T get the vat too hot. Wierd scum on top of vat. (Vat sort of works.)

End of Fennel Season

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Endofseasonfennel

Dye plants work on their own time tables, ignoring (my) schedule, day job hours and other relivant interruptions which may be why I prefer using dry-ables. The Fennel seems to be going into its die-off cycle. Fortunately its one of those dye plants that seems to work just as well fresh or dried and I have enough stocked up for what passes as Winter in California. And, about the time that the Fennel is finished the Oxalis will probably be reappearing.

It would probably sound great to say I grow all my own dye plants but I certainly don’t – lack of space for starters. I probably have sufficient garden space to grow dye to cover sock toes. The Fennel (yellow dye), until I transplanted it into the yard, I used to chase around town ahead of the weed abatement people. The Oxalis (the other yellow) appeared on its own and refused to leave. Since both of these work well fresh or dry I can save and dry for the season and have enough to dye beyond the sock toes.

Otherwise I rely on things that are going to be tossed out – Onion peels, lawn grass and Eucalyptus leaves for example. I have grown Maddar but again its hard to grow enough for an extensive dye project so I buy that dried. I have to Woad plants going this year but again that probably toe coverage so the Woad and Indigo are also purchased dry.

2sockStart2

My little overdye experiment – the Knitpicks sock blank – has some Oxalis (yard), Maddar and Indigo. This is also my first time knitting toe-up, two-at-once socks.

Lastly, this is the new wordpress version of the dye blog.

 

Knitpicks Sock Blank and Dye Plants

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After following the Knitpicks sock blank knit-alongs and dye-alongs  I decided to try one myself using dye plants. 

Sockblank01

Knitpicks sock blank. Starting with an overnight soak and standard Alum bath.

Sockblank02_oxylas

Start with Oxylas. The sock blank soaked up the dye incredibly well. I underestimated the wicking effect and lost the white spots.  For the next one it mgiht be interesting to try with some dry areas.

Sockblank03_addMaddar01Sockblank03_addMaddar02

Overdye with Maddar.

Sockblank04_afterBath

Some ‘saddening’ with Iron and Copper to tone down the yellow.

Sockblank05_indegoDip

Last the Indigo overdye.

 

2sockStartToes22sockStartToes

I am a total convert to the Magic Loop method of sock knitting but have never tried two at once or toe up. The pattern is good but I was somewhat confused at the beginning. Once over that hurddle I think the rest will be fairly straight forward.

 

 

Woad: woad and ‘volunteer’ basil

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The woad continues growing out and now up. In one of the pots some volunteer basil appeard, which means Pesto sauce as well as blue dye.
Woad_DSC_0088Woad_DSC_0089

Woad_DSC_0087

I wasn’t sure how the particular plant would manage in a hot, dry (Southern California) climate. It seemed to start out slow last fall and really took off around the beginning of summer.

Should anyone else be interested, here are a couple of Woad sites:
Woad Inc
Rowan’s Woad Page
Yahoo Group: woadgrowers

woad and fennel

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Yard fennel, summer 2008Yard fennel close-up, summer 2008

Around the time that the Oxalis was dying off the Fennel seemed to take off. It looks like I won’t be scavenging the Smart-&-Final parking lot or sides of freeways for Fennel this year. The backyard stand – now too large to be called a shrub – is producing enough to keep me in dye and local insects in food.

Woad early June 2008Woad early June, 2008Woad late June, 2008Woad late June, 2008

Also here, my first attempt at growing Woad. There are 2 plants, still in pots. One seems to have some Sweet Basil growing along side – probably from some other planting. They are about 6” across right now. I’m not sure how fast these grow but it is unlikely there will be blue dye until next season.

Dried Oxalis, tare function and other good things

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oxylasDyedYarn02I tend to work with dried dye plant material rather than fresh.  My gardening space is on the small side. Even with ‘weeds’ I rarely have enough fresh material so I’ve been concentrating on plants I can dry and save up over time.

 

Red and blue aren’t a problem because I can purchase Madder and Indigo already dried. Onion peels (yellow to orange and rust) are dry and easy to store. Usually its the yellows that need some planning. Fennel is my local dryable yellow for wool and Oxalis for cotton (although it works on wool too). The dye books I’ve been reading tend to discuss the plant to dye stuff radio in terms of fresh dye material, often 1:1 (dye material:fiber) or in the case of cotton as much as 2:1 (dye material:fiber). The weight drops quite a bit in the drying so I did some before and after weighing to get a better idea of how much to use.

 

The dried Oxalis seems to be about 12% of the fresh. Which means 1:1, 2:1 or anything like that is way too much dye material.

oxalisFresh  Fresh material weighed .9 oz or 25 g

oxalisDried  Dried material weighed .1 oz or 3 gm.

For a long time I’ve used my trusty triple beam scale for measuring dye material. This had been given to me by my father. He always used a triple beam scale for measuring ceramic glaze chemicals and it was one of those things he thought I should know how to use correctly, along with tire changing and other useful stuff.

Recently I got my first digital scale. Obviously it must take very little to make me happy. I love the push-button tare function. (Way easier than zeroing out my old standard.) Also being able to switch between metric and that other thing by pushing a button. Even the cats like it.

digitalScale01digitalScaleTareFunction2

Oxalis and (mostly cotton) dye test

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MoreOxalis 

(before and after)

OxyasDyedYarn05

Cotton samples, 50% and 25% DRIED plant to fiber, and then on the far right extra samples tossed into the 50% and 25% dye soup to exhaust the dye. The extra samples (in order) were wool, soy silk and cotton.

So far my most successful cotton processing has been derived from Jill Goodwin’s “A Dyer’s Manual” – a book both beautiful and useful.

Jill Goodwin method: soak the cotton at least an hour (overnight in this case); “mordant 8 oz of cotton, dissolve 2 oz of alum (60 grams) and half an oz (4 tsp or 20 ml) of washing soda in a pot of boiling water” – ok ounces make my head ache, I use metric for dye work so I calculated this to alum 25% (.25 x weight of fiber) and washing soda 6% (.06 x weight of fiber); boil cotton in alum and washing soda for half an hour, stir occasionally.  

I simmered the dried oxalis (contained in a pantyhose foot) and the cotton for about an hour and cooled overnight, around 24 hours.

Goodwin suggests that you use 2x the weight of the material to be dyed. however I have found that dried dye material is quite a bit stronger (concentrated?) then fresh.  The color on the photo I have posted here is definately not perfect but gives a general idea of the color. The fiber is darker in the dye liquid but even after the washout I had a decent medium and deep yellow. I plan to try a 10% for a lighter yellow.

The surprise was the amount of color left in the dye liquid that was picked up by the wool, soy silk and 2nd cotton samples. The light yellow samples I will probably over dye with indigo.

Oxalis and bees

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In the area of Southern California where I live, Oxalis is one of those frighteningly hearty and unstoppable plants that appear wanted or not. On the positive side, this is one of the few local plants I’ve found that works well on cotton and produces a nice bright yellow. (Samples on the way). And the bees really seem to enjoy it.



The Oxalis reappeared this year around late November. Generally as soon as it shows up I start picking and drying it (paper bag hanging in the hall near our floor heater vent) so there is enough on hand for a decent dye bath.


Oxalis fresh, and dried.

Beginners Luck and Fennel

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Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

(Note: for the best search results use ‘foeniculum vulgare’.)

Part of the plant used for dye: flower heads

fiber: wool (It could be me but I can’t get this to work on cotton)

Proportions: 1:4 (fiber:plant)

The first dye plant that I ever tried working with was Fennel. A lucky choice since Fennel (unlike the Avocado pits from hell) has always given me a fairly consistent yellow and provided a pretty good first-time experience with plant/vegetable dyes.

Fennel is one of those wonderful multi-use herbal/dye plants that are often bad-rapped as noxious weeds prone to taking over a garden, city block, etc. In my tiny corner of Southern California (Los Angeles) this doesn’t seem to be the case and my own transplanted fennel plants are quite well-behaved.


I have gathered from the local Smart-and-Final parking lot, Topanga canyon, and patches next to the freeways (public areas) and eventually transfered some smaller plants to my garden.




Nature’s Colors (Ida Grae) describes using Fennel fresh, 4:1. It also appears to work dried.
That is another thing I’ve found about working with dye plants vs synthetic dye. You work on the plant’s schedule not your own. When its ready you had better be there with properly soaked fiber and not the next day at which point it may be past the point of giving up good dye, have been stepped on or eaten. The only way around this is to try drying and saving. Fennel seems to work.

The amount of mordant to use is calculated by the weight of the fiber. A wonderful booklet published by Las Aranas Spinners and Weavers Guild, Dyeing with natural materials has an excellent chart and information about safety (the poisonous stuff) and disposal.

My other standard reference is always Nature’s Colors by Ida Grae. (<- I believe this one is out-of-print but findable places like abebooks or amazon used.)