Rediscovering Tie-Dyeing

Back in my teens I used to do quite a lot of tie-dyeing. I tie-dyed everything (using commercial dyes) - tote bags, silk scarfs... I even tie-dyed a dress that I had my aunt sew for me from plain white cotton (I did not have any sewing skills to speak of at the time) - oh, I loved that dress... I couldn't find any pictures of it, though (it was the early 1990s - before digital photography became accessible to everyone... when cameras were fed photographic film... and you thought twice before taking a picture...).

Now my recent experiments with plant dyes on cotton fabric are getting me back into the mood!

I dyed these two pieces of cotton cloth (each about 50 cm x 75 cm, approx. 110 g total) with a heather dye (100g heather simmered for about an hour, then strained).

The lighter coloured piece was tied right from the start and dyed in one step. The darker fabric was dyed in a two-step process - it was first dyed yellow in the same dye bath as the lighter piece of cloth. Then I tied it, added a little less than 1/2 tsp of iron(II) sulphate to the dye bath and put the fabric back in for a couple of minutes.

I'm really pleased with the result... there's a high probability of many a tie dyed project bag coming into existence in the near future...

The Quest for Pink...

I have two daughters - 3 and 7 years old - and both have an inexplicable love for amost all shades pink. So when I started dyeing again this year, one question came up pretty much right away: "Mum, can you also dye pink yarn with plants?". I said I'd look into it...

Avocado seems promising, and as I have mentioned before (when I managed to dye that pretty peach yarn), I will have to conduct extensive research on the subject... but that means eating lots of avocados first. So while I am saving up avocado pits and skins for the next couple of weeks - why not try some other plants that are said to produce pink dyes.

I found several accounts of a "rose, lavender, mint and lemon" dye that will give you pink. What I couldn't find was an actual dye recipe...

Time for an experiment.

Questions:

• I know that rose petals alone should give me some kind of yellow on wool, no idea about the lavender... probably something with a green tinge?
• The addition of lemon juice does make sense to me... lots of dyes are pH sensitive, so shifting the pH value in any direction can have surprising effects. But what difference will the mint make?

Supplies & Materials:

5 big(-ish) jars (with lids)
5 BFL fibre samples (à 20 g), pre-mordanted with alum (15% WoF)
5 cotton fabric samples (50 cm x 50 cm), pre-mordanted with alum (15% WoF)
5 tablespoons (preferably ones that you only use for dyeing)

100 g dried rose petals (mine were not the newest... I was just hoping they would work)
100 g dried lavender flowers
juice of 1 fresh lemon
10g fresh mint leaves

pH indicator strips
an oven

Preparing the dyes

Fill the jars with...

Jar 1: 40 g rose petals
Jar 2: 40 g lavender flowers
Jar 3: 20 g rose petals + 20 g lavender flowers
Jar 4: 20 g rose petals + 20 g lavender flowers + 4 tbsp lemon juice
Jar 5: 20 g rose petals + 20 g lavender flowers + 4 tbsp lemon juice + 10 g fresh mint leaves

then add hot water, stir and put the jars into the oven for a good hour at about 90°C.
Let the dye cool and strain the plant material from the dye baths.

Different colours of the dye baths should are apparent - the fluid in jars 1, 2 and 3 were different shades of reddish brown (jar 2 with a slight hint towards purple)...

jars 4 and 5 looked very definitely red, 5 leaning slightly towards orange.

The dyes in jars 1, 2 and 3 were almost pH neutral at 6,5. The dyes in jars 4 and 5 were acidic at pH around 4 due to the addition of the lemon juice.


Dye Process

I put one wool sample into each of the jars, and filled them up to make sure the wool is covered (see pictures above). Then I put them in the oven at around 90° for a couple of hours, and let them cool over night.

I did the same with the fabric samples the next day.

After taking the samples out of the dye bath I let them dry before rinsing.

Results

This experiment turned out to be a perfect example of how much the resulting colour depends on the fibre.

Here's how the dyes turned out on wool (jars 1 to 5 in order from left to right):

The results in all the jars that contained rose petals were shades of yellow. They are nice yellows, but nothing out of the ordinary, really. My daughter claims that she does see a very faint hint of pink in the samples dyed in jars 4 and 5 - I'd say the do lean towards a warmer yellow with a slight orange tinge. My suspicion that lavender on its own will yield a green tinge was confirmed. It's actually a very pleasant light green...

A lot more variety in colour can be found on the cotton samples (again, jars 1 to 5 in order from left to right):

You can see from the drying picture above - which was taken before rinsing, that quite a bit of colour did wash out in the rinsing process, but I was delighted to find that some colour did stay on!

Jars 1 and 3 gave me shades of light brown.

Lavender really was a pleasant surprise on cotton - yielding a truly beautiful light green tone.

And yes! We do see pink! Jar 4 (rose + lavender + lemon) yielded a very clear light pink tone, while the mint in jar 5 seemed to mute the pink a little bit toward a dustier shade with a slightly orange tinge.

And just for comparison - cotton and wool together:

Notes for future experiments
I am definitely interested in further rose dye experiments on cotton yarn and fabric. So here are some ideas:

• I have read that mordanting with aluminum formate yields better dye results for plant dyes on cotton than mordanting with alum. Must try that...
• I would have loved to have a 6th and 7th jar for rose + lemon and rose + lemon and mint, but I did not have enough rose petals for another two jars... will buy more rose petals...

Peachy Avocado...

Reading about dyeing with avocados made me curious - so I saved up 6 avocado pits (ca. 140 g) to give it a try myself. I was curious to find where my yarn would end up in the range of colours from peach to dusty pink that I had read so much about.

But first of all... decisions... decisions... do I chop up the pits, or leave them intact. I had read both opinions (some going so far as to say you shouldn't even use damaged pits)... well, I went with chopping them up. Might be an interesting future experiment to do a direct comparison of both methods...

Anyway, I soaked the chopped up pits in water for a couple of hours, then fired up the dye pot. Sure enough, the water turned a really nice orange red. I let the dye cool down before straining it, putting the chopped pits into a net, then adding my pre-mordanted (12% alum; 5% cream of soda) yarn (100g) - a wool / silk / ramie blend - and the net containing the pit chips to the dye bath.

I used a thermometer and made sure to switch off the gas whenever the dye bath reached around 80 °C (so far, I am dyeing on our gas stove, and even on the lowest possible setting everything boils up like crazy after a while). When the temperature dropped below 70 °C I switched on the stove again. I held the temperature in this range for about an hour, then let yarn cothe cool down with the dye bath. I did not rinse immediately - hung the yarn outside to dry for a while first. Then rinsed, and hung it to dry completely.

The dye bath looked pretty much depleted after this, so I was going to pour it out the next morning… But guess what, when I came back in the morning, it looked darker again, so I decided to boil it up again… and yes, there seemed to be enough dye again to give it another try. So I put a 100 g skein of 100 % wool (mordanted the same way as the first skein) in after the dye bath had cooled down again a little. Heated it up a couple of times during the day, then let it cool down in the bath… and got another, slightly lighter, peach colour.

Here’s a picture of both skeins together for better comparison.

Have to start saving avocado pits again, and the peel, too. I read that they keep well in the freezer. 

Possible future experiments:

• Try to extract the dye from the pits over the course of several days… see if I can get more saturated colours. 
• Compare peel dye and pit dye.
• Compare whole pit dye and chopped up pit dye.
• Effects of dye bath pH on resulting colour.

What to do with those leftover Easter egg dyes...

So I dyed some eggs for Easter... because the kids wanted proper, colourful Easter eggs on the breakfast table to go with our "Hefezopf":

Those eggs did not take up all the dye, of course... so what do we do with leftover dye? Dye yarn of course! I found two balls of white sock yarn and decided I wanted to try a gradient dye.

Ingredients (assuming you did not just dye Easter eggs):

• vinegar
• 2 red Easter egg dye tablets
• 2 blue Easter egg dye tablets
• 2 balls of sock yarn à 50 g

Procedure:

1.   Soak both skeins in warm water with a dash of vinegar for a while.
2. Dissolve 1 red and 1 blue dye tablet in hot water with 4 tbsp vinegar. Pour the dye into the dye pot and add enough water to cover the wool.Dye both skeins a light purple.
3. Let the yarn dry enough not to cause to much of a mess in the livingroom when you roll the two strands into one ball.





4. Make a new dye bath using one red tablet. Put the ball of yarn in, making sure it is completely covered, start heating up the dye bath. When the outer layer does not seem to take up any more dye, start to wind the yarn onto a kniddy-knoddy VERY  SLOWLY. Caution! Hot! Go on until either all dye is depleted or you think you've got enough red-ish purple yarn on the kniddy-knoddy.



5. Wind the rest of the ball onto the kniddy-knoddy. Do this in a place where splashing water doesn't matter all that much... 



6. repeat step 3. Make sure you start at the red end.
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 with a blue dye tablet. 
8. Let the yarn dry.
9. Separate the strands by winding them into two balls. Do this with no children around, because there's bound to be plenty of adult language involved.
10. (optional) Re-wind the balls into skeins or cakes to make them even more pleasing to the eye.

I just LOVE the result. Yes, seperating the two strands in the end was tedious... but I think it was totally worth the effort! Now I'm trying to decide what to make from these - leaning towards shawl...

Starting into the dyeing season

Ha! I've been quiet for far too long... again!

I know... is there really such a thing as a dyeing season? Can't I just dye in the winter, too? Well, I suppose I could... I just hardly ever do. Truth is, I like to keep the door to the balcony open while heating up the dye bath, especially when I'm using plant dyes - can get uncomfortably cold in the winter. Also, I like to dry my dyed yarn / wool braids / fabrics out on the balcony... takes ages in winter...

BUT, now it's spring again - and last week was Easter... which always makes me want to dye. I had been saving onion skins for months... ended up with a good 120g! So, onion skin dyeing it was...

I picked out a braid of mystery wool - I don't have the faintest idea what it is exactly... came with a drop spindle set - and some cotton fabric. Later, when it was clear that there would be plenty of dye left after the first dye bath I prepared three skeins of wool yarn for a second and third dye bath.

I mordanted everything with 12 % WoF alum and 5 % WoF cream of tartar.

And here's the result of a weekend of dyeing with onion skins:

The coppery orange braid on the right and the wonderfully yellow cotton fabric are from the first dye bath. I scrunched up the cotton cloth and tied it into a ball, which gave it a slight tie dye look. The light orange skein on the right is from the second bath, the two yellow skeins in the middle and on the left are both from the third dye bath - the colour of the middle skein was slightly modified towards a slightly orange tinge with a teaspoon of potassium carbonate.

And another picture of the skeins - in reverse order:

 So, yup - dyeing with onion skins is definitely lots of fun - I was surprised by the range of colours (from a deep coppery orange to a sunny yellow) I got from this one pot of dye. Surely something that I will try again... already started to save more onion skins...

Another year over...

Time to look back and choose my favourite 2017 projects. I really enjoyed all the projects I finished this year (I probably wouldn't have finished them if I didn't), but two projects really stood out among all of them.

The first one must be my first ever fully stranded pair of socks. I knit them in Regia 4-ply and Lang Yarns Super Soxx on 2.5 mm needles. I just love these socks - I am in fact wearing them as I am writing this.

Irish Dream is a free pattern!


And then there was this cardigan... big, and colourful!  The yarn I used was Crelando Maike - lovely colours and wonderful to work with. The only slight drawback is that it is prone to pilling. Anyway, my favourite garment this summer (yes, I wore this in August... because just because the calendar says it's summer doesn't mean it feels like it). One day when I was walking trough town a woman asked me if I knit this myself... she seemed almost disappointed when I said yes - I think she had secretely hoped I could tell her where to buy one.

Another free pattern by the way... Just the right angle.

Halloween Project Bag Sewing Frenzy

Up until quite recently, my toddler girl has been surprisingly indifferent to my knitting or crochet projects lying around the house. But now all of a sudden she grows more and more interested in the squishyness of yarn balls... Which means I can't let my projects lie around openly any more. I need project bags - with zippers! Now, I have made a few of those in the past, but I've never kept a single one for myself.

My favourite pattern for zippered pouches is the Open Wide Zippered Pouch. I found some halloween themed fabrics in my stash - leftovers from last year's halloween swap sewing - and took full advantage of the size chart. I made two bags of each size... in just two days (well... evenings)!

Now I just have to keep them hidden from the 5-year-old... she loves bags of all shapes and sizes, and I bet she would just love to get her hands on the one with the little ghosts on it - because it's glow-in-the-dark! But hey... I've got plenty of that fabric left - she will get one too... eventually.

I just hope the little one will take her time to find out how those zippers work...