Early July..
Black bean dyeing: soaked 2 lbs. black beans for 36 hours.
Drained the beans and added mordanted wool and mordanted silk scarf (alum) to soaking water (no heat added)..let sit for days
until color deepened, rinsed, hung to dry
Noticed there was still plenty of color in dye bath, so I added
a skein of pre-mordanted Licorice Twist wool yarn, color still good, and I love
the variation on the Licorice twist
In our cool climate, the beans did not show signs of
fermentation after 48 hours, so I slow cooked them with the usual suspects...onions, garlic, peppers and spices
I added a Tbsp. of vinegar to the dye bath, but you can play around with the
Ph and get different shades which I intend to do on my next try.
This dye
bath is also very sensitive to heat, so I didn’t heat the fabrics at all, just let the
ambient air temperature do its thing.
The BB dye is supposed to be fugitive, but these have been “hanging
out” for a few weeks and show no signs of fading…still waiting with fingers
crossed
Silk Satin scarf with Black Bean soaking H2O dye
2 wool skeins from Black Bean dye bath...Bulky and Dharma Licorice Twist
Close up, note the different tones on the Licorice Twist (pic is showing a little lighter than actual color)
