Knitting Iris

Mordant alternatives, Project Spectrum Metallics Recap.

The June/July colors for Project Spectrum of Red, Black, and Metallic weren't the easiest ones for me to participate in but it got me thinking about the metals that we have and use around here, both C in the woodshop, and myself in dyeing.

Metal salts are frequently used as mordants in the process of "naturally" dyeing of fibers.  They are not only used to "fix" the colors to the fiber but also different ones are used to achieve different colors from the same plants.  Alum (Potassium Aluminum Sulfate) is considered to be the safest of them, frequently cited as being safe for even children to use.  This is the only powdered form of mordant that I am comfortable using, in conjunction with cream of tartar, and still I do not include the boys in the mordanting of yarn. 

Some other metal salts used as mordants are Chrome (Postassium Dichromate or Potassium Bichromate), Copper or Blue Vitriol (Copper Sulfate), Iron or Copperas (Ferrous Sulfate), and Tin (Stannous Chloride) all of which are extremely toxic.  A Handbook of Dyes from Natural Materials, by Anne Bliss has terrifying descriptions of these that scare the living wits out of me and has certainly convinced me that I'll never, ever choose to use any of them.  How I wish all dye books had such frank descriptions.  Personally, I'd have a hard time calling my dyes "natural" if I were using such hazardous and deadly substances.  Even if I didn't have children, I would never choose to have these in my house, no matter how well labelled and stored.  The potential for  danger would be too great and disposal of leftovers into a septic system or watershed could be devastating.

There are some safer alternatives to powdered metal salts, however.  Lichens and some plants can either be used without mordants and can, themselves be used as a premordant for dyeing with other plants. 

A somewhat safer alternative to using the concentrated Copper or Blue Vitriol powder is a Copper Penny Green that I learned of years ago in a lichen dye class.  It can be used as a premordant, for overdyeing, or just as a dye itself.  (The sagey greenish-blue yarn above was dyed in this way)  Mix the following and keep in a nonreactive container such as a glass jar with a piece of plastic wrap between the metal lid and the contents:

Fifty pre-1982 U.S. pennies (pre-1982 they had a higher copper content)

3 and 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup ammonia

Keep in a nonreactive jar until color develops.  No heat is necessary when dyeing.  Just immerse fiber in the solution which can continue to be reused, topping off with more water and ammonia as necessary.  Wild Color, by Jenny Dean has a similar version that uses vinegar rather than ammonia and lengths of copper pipe in place of the pennies.  Another alternative is dyeing directly in an unlined copper pot.  I have yet to try that one.

An alternative to the Iron or Ferrous sulfate powder is dyeing directly in an unseasoned iron pot, or creating a similar solution to the copper bath but with rusty bits of iron: nails, screws, lengths of chain, horseshoes, etc.  These are methods that I often use.  So many dye plants produce yellow tones but the same plants can often give a greenish or greyish hue in an iron pot.  Wild Color also has a different version of this than I use that calls for vinegar and water as well.

Of course, these methods aren't entirely safe themselves I suppose but our kids are well aware that they need to stay clear of these things when they're out and in use.  They would never be out when other children were here.  And, of course, even with natural dyeing, you always use well marked containers and measuring cups and spoons that are designated only for use in dyeing.

None of this is new, I'm sure, to those who use natural dyes regularly.  I just thought I'd share for others who might be interested or are newbies at it.

More catching up on the past month-or-so's focus on metallics in the next post or two or three.  I know, I'm a little behind the times here but I figure I'm still on the cusp between the new and old PS color schemes, aren't I?

Regarding Tola's comment below:  Good question.  I haven't actually worked with this dyebath in awhile but I'd say leave the (wetted) fiber in for between an hour and 24 hours.  When it comes out of the dyebath it will be a brighter blue but will change to a more sagey-blue-green hue.   

 

Lace (nearly) Knee Highs

Yarn: Dahlia-dyed, last summer.  The khaki toes and heels are another plant dyed yarn.  I'm pretty sure it's dyed with Purple Loosestrife, possibly Canada Thistle.  Pattern: Lace Knee-Highs from Interweave Knits, Winter 2004.  I modified the pattern, making decreases earlier on, not in the interest of getting a personal fit, rather out of fear of running out of yarn.  Oh right.  That's why I don't like top down socks anymore, because panic about running out of yarn sets in about 2 inches after casting on and then the worrying about it during the rest of the knitting doesn't make for relaxing knitting.  A short row heel was substituted for the flap heel called for in the pattern.  I didn't bother with blocking, or actually, the quick pressing with an iron that usually happens before the final picture taking.

After seeing Lolly's version of this pattern last October, I gave the pattern another looking over.  These will need elastic or maybe some sort of I-cord tie threaded through the eyelets in the ribbing.  I just noticed in the post from last summer that, after dyeing this yarn, I was considering using the Falling Leaves pattern.  I'd have to say that "Falling Leaves" might be a more appropriate name for the "Lace Knee Highs" I ended up knitting.

Lincoln Green

The boys helped me gather Lombardy Poplar catkins for only a few minutes at the local plant nursery before wandering off to find something else to do.  R found a shady spot to put his nose back into The Adventures of Robin Hood and E picked out a 6 pack of violas to bring home.  Here is where I found them, in the shade:

As we drove away, R still reading, he piped up and asked, "Mama, what color is 'Lincoln Green'?"  Well, it isn't 'Lincoln Green', but this is the color that those catkins dyed a ball of Regia Silk sock yarn (a merino/silk blend) mordanted with alum:

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read about this in Natural Dyes from Northwest Plants, the very first natural dyeing book I purchased when I was living in the Seattle/Tacoma area.  When I first read this book, I had no idea what a poplar tree was, let alone a Lombarday Poplar or what a catkin was.  I had to refer to other books to find all that out.  What I did know was that I somday wanted to get the "Jade Green" as the book stated it would, even if it also rated the fastness of this color as "Poor."  In town last week, I noticed the purple catkins carpeting the bank parking lot next to a row of tall poplars.  It would have been easy gathering there but it's FAR too public of a place for me to stoop and collect them there.  People don't really need any more excuses to think I'm a little odd.  ;)  Instead, I found a more secluded spot at the plant nursery where I used to work, where one of my closest friends works now, and where one of the owners of the nursery is the high school art teacher and has done some natural dyeing herself, going so far as to bring dried hibiscus flowers back from a trip to Mexico for me to try using for dyeing.

I still can hardly believe it!  Those purple catkins that made a deep brownish-purplish dyebath dyed that color green!  So, I extracted even more color out of the catkins and added that in to strengthen the dyebath.  The only problem was that I didn't have any more yarn to dye.  6 days later when more arrived in the mail, I quickly mordanted a batch, put a skein of merino laceweight yarn in the dyebath, and came up with this:

Hmmm.  It's actually duller than this picture shows.  Blah beige.  Oh well.  The best thing about blah beige is that it can easily be overdyed.

There's a certain amount of magic involved in dyeing, and chemistry, too, I suppose, but I wouldn't know anything about that.  Aside from Calculus 101 in college, high school Chemistry is the only other class I ever dropped out of.   Apparently there are some limits to what my brain can grasp.  Why didn't I get the same green as before?  I have some ideas but really I don't know and don't really care to know the "real", scientific reason.  It's the unknown, the suspense, the excitement, the "what will this look like when I pull it back out of the dyepot?", the magic, the mystery, that keeps my interest, keeps me trying and experimenting with new plants or retrying old ones, sometimes in new ways.  The catkins are too far gone this year to try another batch, but there's always next year.  Maybe then I can figure out what happened here.

Lincoln Green, the color of the clothing worn by Robin Hood and his merry band was "first dyed blue with woad and then overdyed yellow with either weld or dyers' greenweed." 

Madge, Your Soaking In It or, The Makings of A Mehndi Artist or Two or Three.

7-8 years ago:  bought the book at the local bookstore with the best of intentions. 

February 2007: planned on making this a Valentine's week project.  After re-reading the book, decided, rather than gather all the supplies myself and attempt one of the multiple "recipes" in the book, to go ahead and order the kit recommended in the book.  Well worth it, I'd say, and nicely packaged.  Unfortunately I didn't order it in time for it to get here in time for Valentines' Day.  If you live near Seattle, you could pick one up yourself at Earthhues in Ballard.  I stopped in there years ago before they were open to the public for retail sales and it was an inspiring place to visit (and it's right down the street from Clover Toys!).  They also sell natural dye kits and individual concentrated dye extract powders.  I've never used any of those but know that they are very high quality and probably quite easy to use.    

This weekend:  Friday potluck at our place.  Saturday a parade, "gold digging" at the bank, and music in the park in town and an evening at the reclaimed lumber yard.  Sunday how about a relaxing day at home relaxing finally doing mendhi?  Despite the simplification of the process that the kit allows, the preparation still took some time, as it should, I suppose.  I did that part on Friday afternoon. 

Once we got over our "blank slate" hesitations and started painting, it was difficult to stop.  Now I can understand the tattoo addiction, though I'm not inclined towards a real one.  After doing a small medallion on each of the boys, R started in on himself and then went to work on his brother and his cousin.   E:  "Make it look like fake blood on my knee!"   Then, he dove in himself.  We eventually had to put a stop to it or they/we'd be covered. 

The results were a little, um, "rustic" this first time.  The boys weren't the only ones unable to sit still long enough to prevent the henna from running together or flaking off before the recommended several hours were up.  We'll be doing this again sometime.  The kit comes with enough henna to do three batches and one was far more than enough for C, his sister, our nephew, our two boys, and myself.  We used maybe a half to two-thirds of the batch.

As for the post title, something about the henna preparations, with the pot of tea and cloves boiling down on the stove, and the little bowls of henna paste and sugared lemon juice, not to mention skeins of wool soaking in the bathtub and pot after pot of dyeing and mordanting yarn and woolens on the stove these days (more on that soon) it just feels that, lately, like Madge, I'm "soaking in it."  I know, it's a stretch, but check out the video.  It's a blast from the past! 

Studying

It's been dreary outside so this was the clearest picture I could get (maybe a "small and silver" would help?)  I've been inside  re-reading and studying this stack of books.  If only this could have been the required reading in school, it would have been much more enjoyable.

I know.  I said I'd be cleaning, but this was on the secret agendafor the week, too, along with updating and uploading to my Flickr pages.  Must go mop the floor now.

Finding Inspiration

1. Close-up of yarns of naturally dyed wool, 2. Plantefarvet garn/ natural dyes, 3. Logwood 1st exhaust, 4. Natural Yarns, 5. Natural dye, 6. greenmarket yarn, 7. norwegianyarn, 8. teotitlan del valle, 9. Dye Pots, 10. The natural dyed hand spun yarn ready for Lindy to weave into a masterpiece., 11. A selection of natural dyes on cotton reels, 12. Natural dyes, 13. Untitled, 14. Itsevärjätyt langat, 15. Natural cotton dyes, 16. Our EGGS!, 17. natural dyes, 18. Some of the colors of the natural dyes, 19. Yarns, 20. Tannery at Fez - all natural dyes, 21. Untitled, 22. natural dyes, 23. natural indigo dyes, 24. Dyed One-Balls, 25. Weaving project 2 Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Oh.  Right.  I'm off to fold laundry... and dream.

Bug Juice

Vegans, vegetarians, and others beware:

Read the fine print:  "Cochineal (color)"

What it really is and how it's used as a natural dye:

Take these little dried up bugs, pulverize them, add water, and simmer:

Add alum-mordanted animal fibers:

There's plenty of other information out there about dyeing with cochineal so I'll keep the details as few as possible.  Using a mere quarter of an ounce of dried cochineal, ground as fine as possible using a regular sized mason jar fitted onto a blender base, first I dyed a 100 gram skein of KnitPicks Color Your Own (lighter pink skein) and then threw in a white silk scarf/playcloth.  Then, since there was so much color left in the dyebath, I put in a 50 gram ball of Regia Silk sock yarn (darker pink skein.)  Still the dyebath was strong so then in went a piece of a woolen blanket, coiincidentally cut to the convenient weight of approximately 100 grams, and then another piece of the same size, successively premordanting and simmering each added skein or woolen piece.  After all this, unable to bear tossing the still very viable dyebath, it was poured into jars, labelled well, and put into the freezer for future use.  Awfully pretty isn't it?

Finally, I'm just now getting to using some of the yarn sent to me before the holidays by Kaarin in South Dakota. Besides the KnitPicks skein above, she sent some beautiful, naturally greyish handspun that she'd bought in Wyoming and a couple of other greenish wool skeins.  Kaarin: I'm not sure if I ever emailed you so here is my public "Thank you."

p.s.  The first time I noticed cochineal listed as an ingredient on a food label was about 10 years ago on a bottle of Snapple but they don't use it any more.  The boys and I shared the bottles of juice pictured above, knowing full well about the contents.  C couldn't drink them because they contain milk.  Who'd have thought?  Milk and bugs in your "juice" and only 1% juice.  Here's something more online about the FDA and the labelling of cochineal. 

Just thought you might like to know.   

Mid-November Socks

The last of my naturally-dyed self-striping sock yarn, blogged about here and here, knitted up.  Knit toe up on #2 Addi turbos with the magic loop method over 56 stitches.  These were started awhile ago in October, left behind at a friends' house for awhile, and then finished off over the past week or so.

The other pictures are from various outings and walks from the past few weeks.  After most of the leaves are off the trees, we are lucky enough to get an extended second wave of fall color when the needles on the Larch trees turn from green to yellow and fall to the ground, blanketing the forest floor and in some cases, the roads, in a layer of yellow.  Glorious!  I never really did capture their colors at their peak this year.  I think this has been the mildest and longest fall we've had in the 10 years we've lived here.  We're still bundling up and getting out to play, go for walks, and ride bikes on some of the warmer days, regardless of rain or shine or clouds.  It'll certainly make the winter seem shorter.

I have a hard time deciding whether or not to gift the socks I've knit from naturally dyed yarn, not because of the extra time involved in preparing the dye baths and doing the actual dyeing, but because:

1)  So far they've all been knit with yarn that is not machine washable.  (I have dyed some machine washable sock yarn in solid colors with plants but haven't yet knit them up into socks.)

2) Probably the first 10 pair of socks that I ever knit were from yarns that would felt in the washing machine and all of them, whether they were mine or they were given away, eventually ended up shrunken beyond wearability, a sad but understandable and ultimately expected fate.

3)  I don't want anyone to feel guilty ever again about accidentally shrinking the socks I've made for them.

4)  As Kelly (no longer blogging as a conscious and conscientious choice) pointed out to me quite awhile back, that modern day detergents are really good at "getting the stains out" and what is a natural dye if not a stain, essentially not much different than the grass stains we hope to get out of our clothes?

5)  Even the machine washable yarns that I've dyed with plants probably shouldn't ever actually be washed in the machine either.  It would be a worthy experiment to knit a swatch and wash it with laundry detergent just to see how much of the color would be taken away or washed out, however, this is not something I'd like to subject a completed knitted object to.  I certainly wouldn't want the recipient of a pair of naturally dyed, hand knit socks to be the one to accidentally find out the results of such an experiment either.

I'd love to be able to give them away to friends/family/fundraisers/fellow knitters but, for now, all of my naturally dyed socks are made only for my own two feet.   Anything anyone might have to add about this, either from personal experience or in speculation, would be greatly appreciated!

On Death and "Dyeing"

In honor of All Saint's Day, Dia de los Muertos, All Soul's Day I thought I'd finally finish and publish this post that's been sitting in my drafts since last summer some time. 

See those pretty flowers on the mantle?  See how gorgeous they are growing outside?  See where I found them,  just beyond the swingset this summer?  It's Death Camas. Excerpted from Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia:  "NOTES:  Poisonous.  The bulb and leaves contain an alkaloid, zigadenine, that is poisonous to humans and grazing animals.  Symptoms include vomiting, lowered body temperature, difficult breathing and finally coma."  Crap.  They're stunning flowers, almost orchid-like with a dazzling, irridescent green heart on each petal only they're growing a little too close for comfort.  I've dug them up and will have to keep a watchful eye out for more each year.  Lovely in a vase high out of reach on a shelf but obviously not a good choice for dyeing with.

I like the idea of using undesireable plants, weeds, for dyestuffs.  I'd love to dye a whole "weed-dyed" sweater's worth of yarn with various different ones. 

Knapweed seemed like it would be a good candidate at first.  From Weeds of the West:  "...introduced from Eurasia as a contaminant of alfalfa and clover seed, ranks as the number one weed problem on rangeland in western Montana.... There is some evidence that knapweeds release chemical substances with inhibit surrounding vegetation."  We have a few small manageable patches of spotted knapweed on our place that can be kept under control with hand picking.  Great!  I can do something good with it like dyeing yarn, or so I thought, until I started hearing warnings about pulling knapweed, the allegations that knapweed may contain cancer causing compounds.  From here: "A compound has been isolated in Russian knapweed that is cancer causing. This compound may also occur in spotted and diffuse knapweed. Please be careful not to injest knapweed or have its sap enter open cuts on the skin." and from here:   "even though there is no evidence that knpaweed can cause cancer, persons pulling the weed or handling the weed in other way should still wear gloves.  The toxin indentified in Russian knapweed and in other types of knapweed should and can be avoided by taking the simple precaution of wearing gloves..."  I've dyed a couple of 1 ounce skeins with knapweed in the past.   Since I can't be sure how these compounds are affected in the dyepot and can't be sure if the compounds break down in the process, I'll never use it again.  It's certainly not something you'd want to risk wearing next to your skin. It's not worth dying from dyeing.

Now, onto the weeds that I did dye with this summer, canada thistle and purple loosestrife:

Canada Thistle:  from Weeds of the West, "This aggressive weed is difficult to control; for example, breaking up the roots by plowing only serves to increase the number of plants."   We have more than our fair share of this plant growing on our place.  It made a nice light olive greenish shade 

Purple Loosestrife:  from Weeds of the West, "...an introduced European ornamental species that often escapes to aquatic sites such as streambanks or shallow ponds.  Infestations can become dense and impede water flow in canals and ditchers.  Reports of reduced habitat for wild life use are common."  The plant I used is actually in a friends' garden.  She's had this plant growing there since before it was designated a noxious wee.  She cuts the plant back each year before it has a chance to go to seed and she lives in a location that is very dry and nowhere near any waterway.  Still, probably not a good idea to have in the garden.  This was supposed to dye a black color with iron.  I didn't use an iron mordant as an additive, instead dyeing in an iron pot and only getting a nice medium to dark brown shade.

Both Weeds of the West, by Tom D. Whitson, et al, and published by the University of Wyoming and North American Dye Plants, by Ann and Robert Bliss have been invaluable in identifying potential plants and weeds to dye with.   

Pumpkin Socks

Appropriately, these socks were finished on the way to the pumpkin patch last weekend where the pickings were already getting a little slim.  The pumpkins were in a few leftover piles in the field but we managed to find some good ones and spend a couple of hours seeing the sheep, chicken, goats, rabbits, riding the pedal cars and more, despite wind and hail followed by plenty of sunshine. 

The yarn is KnitPicks Dye Your Own in fingering weight that I dyed self-striping with Coreopsis tinctoria and Yarrow over a year ago now, posted about here and here.  They were knit toe up with the magic loop on #1 Addi Turbos over 56 stitches and they hit about mid calf so they're bunching around the ankles a little in real life.  I just loved knitting these and they had the perfect amount of modern-day witchy-ness when worn today peeking out from under green velveteen jeans and my "new" $4 thrifted-in-Seattle Jack Purcells with the smiles on the toes!  So, I guess these triple as a pair for Socktoberfest 2006, the Sock-A-Month knitalong, and I suppose even for the Witch Sock Design Contest.  I'm not sure if they can top my last year's knee-high witch socks, though.  You can expect to see a lot more of this type of candy-corn striping around here in the next little while.  I guess it's in my bones right now.

We've been doing some pretty messy crafting and concocting around here lately, including potato printing, papier-mache and the "oobleck", above, that we made earlier this month while reading Dr. Seuss' Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  We pulled it back out the other day and added googly eyes to make crazy monsters, aliens, critters, and ghosts.  There seems to be a few different "recipes" out there for this stuff.  We got ours from The Ultimate Book Of Kid Concoctions, by John E. Thomas and Danita Pagel, where they call it Gooey Gunk.  Here they call this Glurch and another mix with cornstarch Oobleck.  Whatever you call it, it's all gooey and fun... and not nearly as messy as I would have thought.