Saturday 9 August 2014

Dyeing yarn


Well who would have guessed that dead buddleia heads would produce this beautiful mustard yellow.
from left to right silk, white wool, the thread that India Flint uses, off white wool and off white silk no mordant was used. 
The recipe for this came from Jenny Dean's new book, A Heritage of Colour.
 I haven't washed to yarns yet so they may lighten also they are not very evenly dyed as I had too much stuff in the dye pot but I don't mind that.

9 comments:

  1. wow, that yellow is scrumptious

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    1. It certainly is, it always make me wonder who would have thought of trying dyeing with such an unpromising plant material in the first place.

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  2. I love the variation in color ...

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    1. Hi Liz, I like that two and it is especially useful for weaving as it means you don't have to keep mixing different colour yarns together to get variations in colour.

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  3. Wow! I'd like to try this on fabric - what do you think???
    I have loads of dead buddleia heads!

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    1. Hi Gill, I think it would work perfectly well on fabric it fact I am hoping to do some myself. If you don't have Jenny Dean's book it is very easy to do. You need approx the same weight of flowers to fabric, then you just pour boiling water over the whole lot and leave for as long as you want. Stir every so often to make sure the fabric is evenly dyed, and put the flower heads in a fine mesh bag.

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  4. Lovely deep yellow. The comments on rust dyeing are interesting. I have no expectation of my work being around for years, so I just enjoy the fun of the process and the unreliable results are all part of the experience. Thanks for your comment.

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    2. Hi Jackie, thanks for popping over, I have just washed the yarns in the machine with no obvious loss of colour.

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