Botanical Rainbow

Yesterday my spinning guild had our Dye Day, focused this year on natural dyes.

I managed a Madder (red/orange) pot. We also had Chamomile (clear yellow), Logwood (purple), Cochineal (fuschia), Lac (raspberry) , Dahlia and Walnut Leaves (tangerine), Snapdragon Flowers (green), and Usnea (brown)

I didn’t get something in every pot, but did come away with a beautiful selection of colors-

I’ve spent a good bit of today rinsing and washing my fibers to ensure that any excess dye is removed before I store them.

I also did a secondary dye process on my Logwood samples. I had some “Purple Jazz” logwood extract in my Earthhues kit that I’d never used, and also some copper mordanted fiber that I ended up not dyeing on Saturday, so this morning I set up my pot and went about trying for a darker (and perhaps a bit bluer) shade

I did a quick search on how to optimize logwood results on wool, and what I found indicated that temperature (170-180), pH (acid for more red, basic for more blue) and time (patience is hard) were all significant factors. Also apparently darker shades are best achieved through a multi-stage process, rather than using a higher concentration of dyestuff.

I expected/hoped that the copper mordanted wool might result in a navy blue shade, and decided on the spur of the moment to add some of the copper mordant solution to the dye vat for good measure. Not sure how much the copper affected anything, but I am really pleased with how vibrant the results were

I also reached a milestone on my colorwork sweater today-

I took it off the needles this morning to do a quick steam block and compare the length to my Alcott Cardigan, and it appears that we’re up to the underarms! So that was exciting.

And in case you think that Dottie’s Freya has gone into hibernation, I finally made the call to day to rip back a couple/few inches because I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how different one of the yarns was on color (too dark, created a bit of a distraction from the cables). Took a while to rip out an re-wind the yarn, but I think that I’ll be happier with it in the long run.

It’s been a few weeks now since I knit on it, so will need to go back to the chart to start, but hopefully will be back on track very soon.

Alrighty folks. Hope you’re enjoying these last days of summer. Have a good week-