Solar Dyeing

Hi,

this is nothing new, but for me it is.  It's something I've always wanted to do, but never found the time or had the right weather to do it!

Recently I joined the Sustainable Natural Dye Practice Yahoo Group and this month we have been studying annatto.  As usual, I've been rather busy and not had time to do any dyeing to speak of, just dye packing!  But today, Saturday, one of my weave students didn't turn up, so rather than waste the day I got out my stainless steel pot with glass lid, annatto and some fibres, fabrics and yarn and made a start.  Better late than never, you all might say.

I already had some Corridale fibre and a silk scarf that had been pre-mordanted in alum and cream of tartar, a small amount of merino, un-mordanted, and with a small hank of un-mordanted cotton yarn that totalled 100g.  I put 5g of annatto into a small amount of warm water to dissolve and put this in my pot, adding sufficient warm water to cover my fibres, fabric and yarn that had been soaking in warm soapy water.

I added the wetted goods, put on the glass lid and it's now in the garden in full sun!   It'll have to be moved around to keep in the sun, but that's not a hardship.  I'll periodically check the temperature to see how it's cooking, just out of curiosity more than anything.  When it's dull I'll put it on the south facing window sill in the house and hopefully keep it cooking for at least 3 days!  Not really sure how long to cook it for, all the references on the internet give different times, ranging from 1 day (8 hours) to 3 weeks!

I've just checked the temperature with my dye thermometer and it's not quite up to 50oC, so it looks like it'll be a few days, at least before it's ready to be rinsed.  It's the ideal temperature for indigo, but  not for my annatto.

Summer Competition Update

We are starting to get some lovely ideas from you all for our Summer Competition, ranging from a Multi-Directional Scarf to knitted mittens! Please keep the ideas coming in.

For those of you who missed our post about the competition, here are the rules:

Alison has spun some Shetland tops, she dyed earlier this year, and can't decide what to make from the yarn she has produced and is asking for your help. In return you can win one of two packs of dyes - a Mini Starter Kit or a Spring 4 Collection.

Alison dyed one 50g lot of Shetland tops with Myrobalan, Madder and Acacia Gum and the other 50gs was dyed with Red Lac and Annatto. She pulled staple lengths of fibre from each top and spun these in turn. The resulting singles yarn was then Navajo plyed (3 ply), to keep the lovely colours separate. There are approximately 8 - 9 wraps to an inch (Double Double/Chunky Yarn!) and approx. 250 yards in all.

We are looking for a suitable knitting or crochet pattern or whatever you can come up with that stylish and bang on trend!

For your chance to win one of the two dye kits you will need to visit the Pure Tinctoria website and either place an order and leave your idea in the comment section or click on Contact Us at the top right hand side of the website and leave your email address, name and message. The item that is produced from the winning idea will be featured on the Pure Tinctoria website and on this blog. We are looking forward to your ideas.

Good luck, oh, and the closing date is Monday 31 August, so there's just over a month for you to put your thinking caps on!

Pure Tinctoria Summer Competition

Hi all

We are running a competition at Pure Tinctoria, this summer. Alison has spun some Shetland tops, she dyed earlier this year, and can't decide what to make from the yarn she has produced and is asking for your help. In return you can win one of two packs of dyes - a Mini Starter Kit or a Spring 4 Kit.

Alison dyed one 50g lot of Shetland tops with Myrobalan, Madder and Acacia Gum and the other 50gs was dyed with Red Lac and Annatto. She pulled staple lengths of fibre from each top and spun these in turn. The resulting singles yarn was then Navajo plyed (3 ply), to keep the lovely colours separate. There are approximately 8 - 9 wraps to an inch (Double Double/Chunky Yarn!) and approx. 250 yards in all.

Alison is looking for a suitable knitting or crochet pattern or whatever you can come up with that stylish and bang on trend!

For your chance to win one of the two dye kits you will need to visit the Pure Tinctoria website and either place an order and leave your idea in the comment section or click on Contact Us at the top right hand side of the website and leave your email address, name and message. The item that is produced from the winning idea will be featured on the Pure Tinctoria website and on this blog. We are looking forward to your ideas.

Good luck

Mordanting Cellulose Fibres

I was reading Deb Bamfords blog, A History of Colour, today and her post was about mordanting cellulose fibres. This prompted me write about some mordanting I did earlier this year with my friend Lorraine.

Those of you who visit Pure Tinctoria at Woolfest and Wonderwool Wales will know Lorraine as my very able helper. I wanted to reward Lorraine for all the help she gives me at these events and won't take a penny in recompense. Knowing she likes makeing quilts, last year I gave her a dyeing kit and cotton fabric for her birthday, and we got together to do the mordanting.

Now, I'm a passionate advocate for wool, British in particular, so I had to get out all my books to check how to do the mordanting properly! I knew I could do it in a one stage process, using aluminium acetate, but Lorraine wanted to do it "traditionally" with the everything in her "kit". So we opted to follow the alum, tannin, alum process. The tannin component was Amber-M (Oak Gall).

I was really impressed with the fabulous colours we got. They are so rich.

This image is of the colours before Lorraine pressed the fabric, but even then they are really beautiful. From Left to Right they are:
Ganges (Dhak), Amazon (Annatto), Rhine-M (Red Lac) and Rhine-S (Purple Lac).

Shetland Tops in Natural Dyes

Well I've spun up one of the Shetland tops I dyed at the demo on Saturday. (Tops 6)

I spun it on Monday and have been knitting a lovely spiral scarf that I was shown in The Hague.

This is the pattern:
Cast on 20 stitches
K one row
*Slip the 1st st, K 8, Yfwd, sl 1 P wise, Turn
P to end (10 st)
Sl 1st st, K 6, Yfwd, sl 1 P wise, Turn
P to end (8st)
Sl 1st st, K 4, yfwd, sl 1 P wise, Turn
P to end (6 st)
Sl 1st st, K 4, (pick up loop under next st and k together with that st, K 1) repeat once, Pick up next loop and k with st. P to end
Repeat from * until desired length is achieved, cast off and secure ends.

It's a really easy pattern and can be knitted in any yarn with any needles! Thanks to Dineke of De Spinners who showed me how!

Clay Cross Lace and Textile Celebration Day

Hi all

on Saturday I was invited to the above event in Derbyshire. In the morning I did a natural dye extracts demonstration and produced the lovely hanks and tops you can see on the right.
The hanks were 95% Blue Face Leicester with a 5% nylon binder and the tops were Shetland.
From the right:
Hank 1 - an immersion bath of Lodhra Bark (Amber-L).
Hank 2 - I painted this one with Annatto (Amazon) and Red Lac (Rhine-M).
Tops 1 - an immersion bath of a mix of Annatto and Red Lac.
Hank 3 - painted with Madder (Indus), Acacia Gum (Caspian) and Kamala (Basant).
Tops 2 - I painted this one with Madder (Indus), AcaciaGum (Caspian) and Myrobalan (Kango).
Tops 3 - this lovely baby pink was an immersion bath of 2% Red Lac (Rhine-M).
Tops 4 - a lovely soft lemon yellow from a 2% immersion bath of Marigold (Ambrosia).
Tops 5 - this is a baby alpaca and bleached tussah silk top painted with Madder (Indus) and Myrobalan (Kango) .
Hank 4 - painted with Madder (Indus), Myrobalan (Kango) and Rhubarb Root (Desert).
Tops 6 - painted with Annatto and Red Lac.

In the afternoon I tutored a Design for the Terrified Master Class. Altogether a very enjoyable day!

Gift Idea No 11! or my brains getting sore!

Oh, dear, my plan to blog every day with a new gift idea is sadly falling by the wayside. It's not that I can't think of ideas for all your "fibrey friends", it's just that I can't think of any more really exciting ideas.

Well that's not quite true. I've come up with some cracking ideas, but they will take time to put together, and times what I don't have!

We'd love to provide some naturally dyed warps for those weavers who don't like making them themselves, either because they don't have the time or the inclination, but want something that little bit different. I'd love the hear from you, as to whether this is something you'd like to see in the UK. There are a number of companies in the US who sell pre-dyed and made up warps, but we haven't been able to find any here, so I'm commissioning Jane Deane to dyes some for me for the New Year, but that's a month or more away.

In the mean time, those of you who do like dyeing why not treat yourself to the Rivers Collection, which includes 10g Amazon (Annatto), 25g Ganges (Dhak), 25g Indus (Madder), 25g Nile (Natural Indigo), 25g Rhine-M (Red Lac) and 25g Rhine-S (Purple Lac) and all instructions.

This collection is now only £20.50 and represents good value for money for such a lovely collection of colours.