Greens and Reds – Christmas in August?

I have not done much with iron but after seeing some of the colors at the earth palette conference last October, some experimentation was in order.   The yellows are Mullein, Snakeweed, and Osage Orange.  The fibers are wool and a wool tencel blend.  The iron is 1-3% weight of fiber.

Left to right, mullein on wool, snakeweed on wool/tencel, osage orange on wool and wool/tencel

The other experiment is with an old wool dyeing recipe. It was given to me by Catharine Ellis after a class she had with Michel Garcia. It is one that doesn’t use mordants but will only work with dyes that contain anthraquinones.  There is an explanation in Harold Bohmer’s book Koekboya

The basic recipe is the dye stuff, an organic acid, and tannin.  The ph for dyeing should be around 4.  I used tartaric acid, chestnut, and gall nuts with cochineal and lac to see what would happen.  The wool was neutralized in chalk after dyeing.

Cochineal on wool on the left – the chalk shifted the color on both skeins. These are with gall nuts as is the one in the middle. The dye on the middle skein is lac as is it is on the two right skeins. Chestnut is used as the tannin on the right two skeins.