Natural Dyeing-Finale
What a fun five days of dyeing! Today I’ll show you the whole palette, but first, a look at the last day of dyeing.
When last I wrote, the walnut was soaking in the pot overnight. While not a vast difference between one hour and the extra time in the pot, the result is a little closer to that chocolate brown I was looking to achieve. The use of iron definitely darkened the brown.
That brings me to the last dye day, a quick dip in an iron bath. Iron is a modifier that “saddens’ color; in other words, it darkens or grays them. It takes a tiny amount and very little time to alter the colors. I used as close to a 2% iron bath as I could get. It was a little tricky because I was only dipping 5 little mini skein thrums that totaled 6.5 grams. This meant I only needed 0.13 grams of iron, just a few specks! I mixed it in water and heated it to 130F. The color changes quickly. The weld, cochineal, madder root, and walnut mini skeins were in the iron dip for under two minutes. I left the logwood in for 15 minutes to see how close to black I could get. I love these colors and was tempted to dip my 50-gram project skeins into iron. However, I think for the purposes of my woven color gamp, the brighter colors will work better.
Here are the six colors for my project, from left to right - walnut, quebracho, weld, madder, cochineal, and logwood. I’m looking forward to seeing how the colors will play together.
And here are all the colors created in my five days of natural dyeing. Quite a pleasing palette, I must say!
I hope you have enjoyed this series of posts.
Natural Dyeing-Planning & Fiber Preparation
Natural Dyeing-Finale
Finally, I thought you might enjoy Pete with some of his garden’s harvest - yummy watermelon and butternut squash.
Debby
