Summer Black Bean dyeing, briefly

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)

Early Dye and Fiber Articles

On the History Channel's series for TV, "The Vikings" the characters are dressed mostly in drab and grey colors.  There were other colors available, and I don't know why they chose to portray the costumes so dark.  Here are some sources from the WWW illuminating the bright colors obtainable from the native plants.

Fibers Help Update the Rise of Culture, By Henry A. Shull   Harvard Crimson  September 25, 2009

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/9/25/fibers-help-date-rise-of-culture/

Viking Age Dyestuffs

http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikdyes.html

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/clothing.htm

http://www.42nd-dimension.com/NFPS/nfps_colours.html

Interesting Q & A on Viking Textiles with nice Color Wheels of wool and information on plants and methods

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54737

Obsessed with Lichens

When I first started my natural dye project it was spring, and I looked at the flowers as sources for natural dyes.  Then as spring turned to summer, I constantly accessed and identified the roadside shrubs for dye sources.  In the fall, I scanned the woods and roadside shoulders for mushrooms (bad mushroom year), and now, as winter weather is here, I am amazed at the large quantity and variety of lichens that are brought down by the storms.

The symbiotic realtionship in lichens is that of a fungus and an algae or a fungus and a cyanobacteria. 

A lichen is a symbiosis. That means that it is two or more organisms living together such that both are more successful within the partnership than they would have been if they were living on their own. With lichens the basic components of this partnership are 1) a fungus called the 'mycobiont' and 2) one or more algae and/or a cyanobacteria called the 'photobiont'. 

There are about 13,500 species of lichen on the planet.  Lichens are basically of 3 types:

Foliose - which means that they are leaf like in their structure.

Crustose - those are like a crust stuck to a surface and are usually very thin and tightly attached. These are about 75% of all lichens.

Fruticose - these are branched structures.

One of the problems with lichens is that they can be very hard to identify, but at least it's fairly easy to classify them by the above and work from there.

Found today in the Pygmy Forest, Lobaria pulmonaria, Lungwort Lichen. 

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/lobaria_pulmonaria.shtml  It can be used as a dye.  I gathered what had been blown from a bull pine and scattered on the forest floor.

I learned today that Cladonia crispata  is the most common mat in pygmy forest.

A couple of good sources for Linchen info and pictures:

http://macrolichen.com/PygmyForest/ 

http://www.waysofenlichenment.net/lichens/alphabetic_index.html

The Sharnoff pictures, authors of Lichens of North America, are very professional.

From a recent walk through our woods

Like shapes: Lichen Lobaria pulmonaria (Lungwort lichen) from Bull Pine in Pygmy forest and Oak Leaves from Cloverdale, CA bundled in silk, awaiting the unwrapping

Usnea rubiginea, Old man's beard, red, from the Pygmy forest, downed tree.  I am going to do my first Ammonia extraction dye with this as soon as I get a little more.  It's ok if it dries first.

Usnea sp.? on branch

Lungwort lichen (Lobaria pulmonaria) and unmordanted wool in water extract dye bath.  Lichen was soaked overnight and then simmered for 2 hours, cooled, and then the wetted yarn was immersed.  It's out on the porch to solar dye (except not much sun right now), so this may take a while.  Water color is golden, rusty orange, yarn is tannish.

Lichen dyed yarns...Lobaria pulmonaria and Usnea sp. BWM (Boiling water method..soak, simmer, leave overnight, add soaked yarn and simmer again)  Leave to cool and until color desired is obtained.

 Usnea sp. mass gathered from fallen pine tree.

 Usnea BWM dye bath with yarn being removed in net bag.  The dye bath appeared colorless, but when the yarn was left to simmer for an hour and a half and sat overnight, it turned a lively golden color.

Usnea rubiginea in AFM (Ammonia fermentation Method) being left to sit for weeks and weeks.  I shake the jar a few times each day to aerate.  The dye bath will have to be neutralized with water and acid (vinegar) before fibers are added.

Cotton Tales

Bundled cotton culottes with red and yellow onions skins, E. cinerea, and hibiscus; boiled in iron pot; don’t know how long to leave it..it’s very dark blue right now, as it dried, it lost much of it's color; I think subtle and earthy are the words for the tones now.

Cotton t-shirts and culottes, after dyeing

Cotton culottes...soaked in alum, tannin, alum and then soy.  I guess I wanted to take no chances, although it's all experiment and chance.

Bundled with eucalyptus and boiled in iron pot

T-shirt soaked in soy, bundled with eucalyptus and steamed

T-Shirt, soy mordanted and cured, bundled with eucalyptus, steamed and then lower half boiled in iron pot

This weeks cotton t-shirts, bundled, steamed, boiled half-way in iron pot, waiting to see when they dry out.  Some of the eucalyptus leaves are fresh and some dry.  Also some hibsicus and onion skins.  

Many of the euca leaves were painted with egg yolk and left to dry before bundling, painted with fresh egg yolk just before bundling.  So many options to experiment with

'

Long maxi dress...eucalyptus on cotton with some iron mordant

2 soy mordanted, iron dipped, cotton tee shirts with eucalyptus, simmered in cochineal dye bat

 Upcycled girls camisole 

Ornamental Pistachio Fling: A Fall Adventure

Pistacia chinensis, or Ornamental Pistachio...green foliage during the year turns a showy red in autumn.  My neighbor, Sooz, put some from her tree in a plastic tub and microwaved it a few times; the water turned pink, so she gave me the rest of her fall leaves plus a bagful from some friends in the Sierras where the trees line Hwy 50.  Oh, joy, plenty for experiments.

Fall pistachio leaves, nicely red and delicate.

Pistachio leaf prints, bottom left, on watercolor paper.

 Dye bath is definitely red.

Skein of yarn dyed with pistachio leaf dye.

The pistachio leaf dye bath and two skeins of dyed wool.  The first skein is tanner.  I added some vinegar to the second dye bath with unmordanted wool in the aluminum pot.  It was pinker.  I would try it again with vinegar the first time.

Eucalyptus and Pistachio leaves bundled for dyeing.

Steamed for 2 hours. 

Silk scarf with pistachio leaves and eucalyptus leaves.

Some nice eucalyptus prints along with the pistachio prints.

My new best friend: Scissors which deckle the edges of the watercolor paper.  I was using the fold, dampen, tear method before, but this is much, much easier.

Paper Eco Prints and Repurposing old T-Shirt

I had a nice unwrapping this AM.  Some steamed paper samples with lots of different leaves: Eucalyptus, various, Hopi Red Dye plant, Maple, Cherry leaves, both green and yellow, Madrone bark found along the gravel road, Purple Petunia flowers, and a brightly colored blackberry leaf

Vintage Cotton panel, leaf printed, to cover up graphics of old t-shirt

 T-Shirt back

Some very nice Eucalyptus cinerea prints, along with various Euca leaves and other fall foliage

 T-Shirt front, almost too much of a riot of shapes

Madrone bark makes very very wonderful marks, upper left patch

Petunias, what great flowers for this, and Cherry Leaves

 Eucalyptus and Cherry

Cherry and

with Maple and Eucalyptus and Cherry

Eco Printing on Paper

This is my second attempt at making eco prints on watercolor paper (300 lb.)  On my first attempt, I made a classic beginner's error....I didn't pre-fit the materials to the steamer, and consequently, the papers, in their wrappings, would not fit flat into the steamer.  I got some prints, but the results were predictably uneven.

I used Eucalyptus leaves, both E. cinerea and E. globulus, Blackberry leaf, Rose leaf, Cherry leaf, Maple, and a few Cotinus.  All the papers and leaves were spritzed with an iron solution before steaming.  The steaming lasted a couple of hours.

I am drying the prints for awhile on an outdoor window in the hopes they will stay flat.

Eucalyptus and Cherry, open spacing

Two kinds of Eucalyptus, mirror images

I got carried away here with, perhaps, too many maple leaves.  Such bounty right now.

 Blackberry and Cherry Leaves

This is a fun and inexpensive way to test leaves...all the leaves I used, with the exception of the fava leaves left more or less distinct prints.  I want to experiment with the use of mordants...alum and spritzes of vinegar, iron, and copper to see what effect on the color.