Light Blue with indigo

It started with a client that wanted pale blue. The fiber was wool; specifically cormo sheep wool. We had many discussions where I tried to explain the pale blue and indigo in production quantities would be difficult. Why? You need to mostly exhaust the thio vat and dye with what is left to get a pale blue. You could try to mix different concentrations of indigo but again, it is really hard to judge. I could get one or two skeins of the right color but not 5-10 lbs. I tried woad which is the right color but is is hard to come by and expensive. Fast forward a couple of years. Fellow natural dyers Donna Brown and Catharine Ellis did some experiments with thio versus the 1, 2, 3 vat and discovered that thio accelerated the time it took to get indigo into solution. It was suggested that I try a 1, 2, 3 vat with minimal amounts of indigo. Donna and I did an experiment with 10 grams of indigo with the corresponding amounts of fructose and lime. We got, you guessed it, light blue. Now to try it with bigger quantities. I set up buckets, mixed a 1, 2, 3 solution with hot water, added warm water to the bucket, added the solution, mixed it all up and waited 8 to 24 hours depending on how impatient I was. I used a bucket with holes in it inside the indigo bucket to keep the yarn off the bottom and left the throughly wetted out yarn in for an hour. I could dye 1 – 1.5 lbs per bucket and then had to remix. Most of the yarn was dyed at least twice. The thicker yarns were much more uneven and had to be dyed 3-4 times. There was no problem with the wool and the high ph. I believe that it is the high ph, heat, and thio which causes the wool to become harsh and dissolve. Further experiments relative to that issue are needed (heat the 1, 2, 3 vat and see if you have the same problem). There was also no problem dyeing the wool without heating the 1, 2, 3 vat. It was at room temperature. It was difficult to dye the skeins evenly, especially the heavier ones. They may benefit from constant movement as you would for a silk or cotton skein but I was hesitant to try that method as handling wool a lot does not usually work well. I tried using the water from an exhausted vat and refreshing the indigo. I got a lot of foam on the top, probably from too much lime. So refreshing the pot also needs some experiments. It may work to half the amount of indigo and use a thio vat but this is simple enough that it is worth adding to the tool kit. Catharine Ellis has a lot of useful information on her blog about the 1, 2, 3 vat.

Bucket with indigo, lime and fructose, first picture

Bucket with too much lime, dyed ok but didn’t like foam, second picture

Heavier skeins were dyed multiple times to get even. Light skein was dyed twice, third picture.

Dyeing the blues

The primary natural dye used for blue is indigo.  After looking through my shelves, I decided to do an experiment with anything that might yield a blue.  The color was the primary focus of the experiment so light fastness, wash fastness, … were not considered.  I just wanted to see the array of blues I had on the same material.  The material is a felted wool mordanted at 20% potassium aluminum sulphate. 

From left to right: indigo, navy blue (dye extract from Sam’s Vegetables in India), blue gardenia (liquid dye from Japan), Saxon blue, Caribbean blue (no longer available).

Weld and dyeing with plant materials versus extracts

I dye with natural dye extracts for the most part.  There are a number of reasons for that choice.  I live off grid and roof collect my water.  I live in a high (7500 feet) desert climate.  Some of the dyeing is done in bulk for customers.  I weigh the various options for dye stuffs based on some of the following considerations:

Water is required for the plants themselves, the growing season is short, a fair amount of plant material is required if dyeing quantities of fiber, and there are a lot of rabbits that are voracious.  It is possible to gather local plants in season but then one has to store them and I have allergies to a lot of the local options.

The plant materials often require multiple dye extractions to get the most color from the plant; requiring yet more water.

Most dye plants yield yellow.

It is easier to develop and adjust repeatable recipes with extracts.

On the negative side relative to extracts, one doesn’t know for sure if the dyes are extracted in an environmentally sound way and/or from plants or bugs that are not a limited resource.  One has to trust the dye extract supplier.

There is also the great satisfaction one feels when using plant stuffs that are locally grown or gathered.

As I enjoy experimenting, each year time is set aside to try plant material dye stuffs.  This year, some weld managed to survive the rabbits, drought, and hail.  Last year, the same plant gave less than stellar results but it was worth another try.  The stalks and leaves were cut from the plant and the dye extracted.  Soda ash was added to make the water alkaline.  The result was must better than the previous attempt.  As weld extract is expensive, I don’t often dye with it so in this case, the plant material might work out to be a good alternative.  

Second year weld plant, seeds from Catharine Ellis

First year weld plant

Wool dyed with weld

Baby weld plants

Hand painted Lace

This project has been on the list for a while.  I chose a lace pattern called Kodama http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/kodama-2 that I thought would work for painting.  The yarn used is Zola from Treenway Silks.  The shawl was knit and then mordanted with 20% potassium aluminum sulphate.  It was blocked after mordanting and then painted with dye extracts.  I debated about using a thickener and then chose not to but painted the shawl wet to minimize the transfer of color from one section to the next.  Colors used: logwood, madder, Osage orange, carribean.  The shawl was steamed after painting and then rinsed.

Water makes a difference

Table Rock Llamas got in some new dye extracts; Lac, Logwood, and Mexican Logwood.  A colleague and I tested them in her water (Denver City water) and mine (roof collected water).  We dyed sample skeins of cotton, silk, and wool mordanted with alum or in the case of cotton, the tannin, alum combination.

The Logwood sample was very similar.  That is interesting as usually I have problems with logwood extract but in this case, the water was clear after I dyed which is a nice change.  The Denver city water is at the top.  My colleague had been told that the Denver water changed a little while ago.  I am sure what was added but it makes a color difference.

  
On the Lac, I got darker results on the wool, lighter on the cotton, and redder on the silk.

  
For the Mexican logwood, I got redder results on all fibers.

  

More purple tests

Some additional experiments with logwood.  I tried logwood chips and chalk (not much change) and logwood extract, cochineal and iron.  All alpaca was mordanted at 25%.

The chips and chalk is the middle skein in the photo below.  The logwood and cochineal on the right.  All of the skeins are in the next photo for comparison.  See the previous post for information on those skeins.
   
 

Shades of purple

I was asked to dye some alpaca a dark purple.  My usual recipe is indigo, mordant, cochineal but there always seems to be some discharge with the cochineal; even when the skein is neutralized in vinegar and mordanted after the indigo so the skein is pale.  Logwood is another option so the following are skeins of alpaca dyed with logwood.  All skeins are mordanted at 25% potassium aluminum sulphate as alpaca seems to do better with a higher % of alum.  Cream of tartar was not used as some references say that logwood goes towards brown with cream of tartar.

Logwood extract from Table Rock Llamas at 4% was used for two skeins.  Logwood chips at 20% was used for two skeins.  Boiling water was poured over the logwood chips and the pot was set aside for the night and used in the morning.

Logwood likes hard water so 5% chalk was added to one dye pot with the extract.  One of the skeins with the chips was dyed in a 10% walnut extract dye bath.

Conclusions; in my water (roof collected rain water) chalk makes an appreciable difference.  The tannin did not seem to make much of a difference.

Logwood extract at 4%; skein that had chalk added is on the bottom.   
All four skeins.

 Skeins with logwood chips.  Skein with tannin is on the bottom.  
Other things to try: mordant, dye, oxidize, mordant, dye.  Some sources say that logwood is like indigo and is better in layers.  Use tara as the tannin as logwood works better with that tannin than walnut.  Add chalk to the chips.

Navy Blue and Forest Green

A couple of years ago, there was an article in Spin-off Magazine about some extract dyes from a company in India; Sams’ Vegetable Dyes.  Two of them were said to be extracted from indigo.  The extraction method is proprietary but as oxalic acid is listed on the dyes; presumably it is similar to that used for saxon blue with sulfuric acid.

I experimented with the dyes on wool (10-12%) weight of goods.  The yarns are mordanted.  The smaller skeins at 10% wog potassium alum sulfate; the larger skeins with 20% potassium alum sulfate and 5 % cream of tartar.  The reason for the difference in mordanting is the subject of another post but the wools are different; test wool skeins versus cormo wool and require different mordanting strategies.

I did not add anything other than the dye to the pots.

Navy blue and forest green text wool skeins

Navy blue on cormo

Forest green on cormo (still wet) 12.5% wog

A comparison between the navy blue and caribbean ( the latter was painted so a bit light).

Cochineal dye experiments

Another dyer and I got together for a day of dye experiments with cochineal.  We had several questions to which we wanted answers.  The first one and the one which we never resolved was an issue with cochineal washing out of silk scarves.  She used a recipe published in Liles book which uses tin and oxalic acid with cochineal.  We tried washing the dyed scarf in orvis paste and hot water.  The dye washed out.  We soaked another dyed scarf in vinegar and the dye washed out in hot water.  My conclusion is that the hot water is breaking the relatively weak bond between the tin, oxalic acid, cochineal, and silk.  We also tried dyeing silks scarves with the one pot recipe from Garcia.  That also washed out.  Subsequently, I consulted with some other natural dyers and it was explained to me that Garcia’s recipe is more along the lines of an acid dye than a traditional mordant dye so that is why it is washing out.  I assume the tin/oxalic acid is similar.  It was suggested that traditional mordant alum based mordant method would work better.  (As an aside, I looked for the recommended % of alum on silk and it ranges from 5 – 100.  Most of the dye books say mordant like other protein fibers.  I haven’t been able to find any studies that compare % of alum on silk.) Second question: cochineal is very sensitive to water and ph.  It is often recommended that you use distilled water.  Garcia suggests adding cream of tartar to tap water when dyeing with cochineal as the cream of tartar acts as a buffer to what is in the water.  We ran an experiment using different water sources and distilled water with and without cream of tartar.  Below is a picture of the sample cards and a picture of one of the sets of jars with and without cream of tartar.  The interesting observation is that all of jars without cream of tartar had the same amount of particulates in the bottom of the jar.  The jars with cream of tartar didn’t have anything in the bottom of the jar.  My conclusion is that cream of tartar does act as a buffer and it is not worth using distilled water unless you have water that will not work with cochineal.  The three instances that I know of where cochineal would not dye with local water was water that was runoff from a mining area. water with iron, and water in which there was sulfur.  The yarn samples are premordanted with 25% alum.  There are some white, grey, brown, and black wools in the samples. The wool cloth sample is unmordanted.       Finally, I wanted to see the results of two other mordants with cochineal; symplocos (premordanted 50% WOF) and titanium (5% WOF) Below are those results on silk and wool.    

Cotton scarves painted with ferrous acetate

This is an old project which I finally finished.  Warps were made with scoured organic cotton, mordanted via the methods in Turkey Red Journal, painted with ferrous acetate of various percentages, neutralized in chalk, rinsed, then dyed in madder and lac.  The warps languished until this spring.  The warp was beamed back to front and threaded using the dogwood draft in Strickler’s book.  The weft is also organic cotton dyed in lac.  The warp was very sticky and a lot of threads were broken in the first scarf.  The second scarf was better as I made sure to check behind the heddles every time the warp was brought forward and split out the threads where necessary.  Kind of a pain but the only thing to do short of rebeaming and having the heddles untangle the threads or cutting off the warp.  I like the end result although I need to figure out a different method for cotton warps if I do this again.