I remember from the textile arts class I took back in my Freshman year of high school, we used alum for our mordant bath. We added the yarn skeins to it and gently raised the heat to a simmer and soaked our yarn in that for a while. It has been over 40 years since then so I can't recall the exact amount of time but since the class time was only an hour, it was definitely less than that. Since it was a once a week class, our teacher had us hang up the mordanted yarn to dry. The following Wednesday we used yellow onion skins to make our dyebath which we strained into a different dye pot and sealed it up to finally dye the yarn the following Wednesday. Our instructor put the mordanted skeins into a tub of water to pre-soak about an hour before the class started. We added the skeins to the dye bath and slowly raised the heat to just below boiling. After the yarn was the color we wanted (a bright golden yellow) we removed half of the skeins from the dye bath and put them in a flat pan to cool before washing it. Then our teacher added the iron salts to the dyebath (I think that she had added them to warm water to dissolve them) and that is when we saw the color shift on the yarn. The iron shifted the golden yellow yarn to a darker, browner shade of gold. She told us that iron will make the yarn more brittle, so you don't want to leave your yarn soaking in it for extended periods of time. I had planned to do natural dyeing this summer but "life happened" and I haven't had a chance to do anything with it. I am very interested in working with cochineal and using calcium carbonate and iron to see what color shifts they would cause.
I also read that I can dry out the mordanted yarn, which maybe is something I should plan to do so I can prep more yarn in advance. My earthues instructions say that it can cool in the pot shorter than overnight, but sometimes it is just more practical to let it sit overnight based on my schedule.
I really should watch other videos with some of these dyes to learn. It would make some of my troubleshooting much easier! I sometimes try to work from limited instructions because that way people can see where I struggle, too.
Natural dyeing is fun but frustrating!! Often plants will throw very similar shades even when something different is expected. Your purple and grey are beautiful.
Those are exactly the colors we had for our wedding 16 years ago (on the 8th!)!!! They're so beautiful ❤ I love watching your vids-- you have so much fun, and it obviously brings you a lot of joy... it's fabulous 😊
Love the colours. Would be interesting to see the variations you could get by changing the percentage of iron. It could be an amazingly subtle gradient set.
Also, logwood usually packs a real punch, so I'd possibly question the quality of the dye extract if you repeat the test with less water and higher WOF%. And you should have lots of dye left over for 1 or 2 exhaust baths 😅🤔 Logwood works well in a solar dye method too! I'd also leave your yarns to cool in the mordant bath overnight too ❤ Love your videos as I don't know much about acid dyeing but know more about natural dyeing, so it's nice to see your experiments!! ❤ awesome you got such great results from Indigo! I'm yet to set up a vat, but I think this year I shall finally get round to doing it! Thank you for the inspiration/push ❤😅xxx
Last Minute Laura has some real good natural dying videos.I think she did one with the wood and used iron to shift color. (But without looking, I could be wrong) Either way the colors came out beautiful
dont worry according to my university dyeing teacher, if you rinse or not it seem not to matter that much. in class the teacher said that iron "saddens" the colour, yes you can use iron nails also copper pipe. natural dyers have jars of not only plant matter, but jars of iron and copper pieces. you use them to change colour of the dye.
This makes me feel a bit better. I'm curious about your take when I add iron with the cochineal. I wonder about timing of when to add iron. For whatever reason the Earthues booklet said how much iron to use, but just not HOW to use it. :D
@@ChemKnitsTutorials well as i am just a student, the professor was non committal on when. the talk was on what sort of effect you were looking to do, and we were to try things.
@@ChemKnitsTutorials i have a liking to do ecco dyeing with tansey leaves and copper as a modifier with alum as the mordent i have gotten an interesting teal around the edges of the leaves.
I'm looking forward to _whatever_ you choose to do next. I wish you could do your 5x5 grid comparisons on some of the variable factors, but the processes entailed in using natural dyes with mordants would seem to make that more than a bit impractical!
I think they also require a lot more heat than my cold process dyeing allows. Once could set up a grid system and then double boil them.... but I think it might be easier to do a 1x5 vs 5x5
@@ChemKnitsTutorials Could you set up a sort of double boiler arrangement using Mason jars in your catering steam pan? Or maybe instead of the tallish Mason jars, some kind of ramekins or oversized custard cups?
So interesting to watch you dye with natural dyes and question what happens! When I used iron water with acorns, I soaked the yarn in the acorn dye bath first, then added the iron and watched the transformation from mucky brown to black. But it has not been easily repeatable. I think strength of Iron water, too hot, not hot enough... Very sensitive!
I really would like it if you were to do a video on safe disposal of artificial and natural dyes and mordants. Disposing of leftover mordant baths, depending on which metal it is made from, can be dangerous to kids and pets if dumped out in the back yard willy-nilly, and if copper sulfate gets into a storm drain that leads to a local stream or river, it can play havoc on the water course's ecosystem.
Maybe? I've never tried mainly because I've seen how these fantasy colors fade so quickly with washing on hair, it makes me think that they wouldn't have longevity on yarn.
Ohhh I would love to see a natural dye mini skein series that would be so fun to see all the different colors you can create by nature
Ideas are swirling in my brain!
I second this!
I remember from the textile arts class I took back in my Freshman year of high school, we used alum for our mordant bath. We added the yarn skeins to it and gently raised the heat to a simmer and soaked our yarn in that for a while. It has been over 40 years since then so I can't recall the exact amount of time but since the class time was only an hour, it was definitely less than that. Since it was a once a week class, our teacher had us hang up the mordanted yarn to dry. The following Wednesday we used yellow onion skins to make our dyebath which we strained into a different dye pot and sealed it up to finally dye the yarn the following Wednesday. Our instructor put the mordanted skeins into a tub of water to pre-soak about an hour before the class started. We added the skeins to the dye bath and slowly raised the heat to just below boiling. After the yarn was the color we wanted (a bright golden yellow) we removed half of the skeins from the dye bath and put them in a flat pan to cool before washing it. Then our teacher added the iron salts to the dyebath (I think that she had added them to warm water to dissolve them) and that is when we saw the color shift on the yarn. The iron shifted the golden yellow yarn to a darker, browner shade of gold. She told us that iron will make the yarn more brittle, so you don't want to leave your yarn soaking in it for extended periods of time.
I had planned to do natural dyeing this summer but "life happened" and I haven't had a chance to do anything with it. I am very interested in working with cochineal and using calcium carbonate and iron to see what color shifts they would cause.
I also read that I can dry out the mordanted yarn, which maybe is something I should plan to do so I can prep more yarn in advance. My earthues instructions say that it can cool in the pot shorter than overnight, but sometimes it is just more practical to let it sit overnight based on my schedule.
I can't wait to hear more about natural dyes! Love these videos! I've been trying natural dyes, too.
YAY! I just edited the madder/weld video so that should be up soon. And cochineal will come at the end of august.
I love natural dyes! Margaret Byrd (Color Quest) does great videos on logwood, and she has a whole series on cochineal
I really should watch other videos with some of these dyes to learn. It would make some of my troubleshooting much easier! I sometimes try to work from limited instructions because that way people can see where I struggle, too.
Natural dyeing is fun but frustrating!! Often plants will throw very similar shades even when something different is expected. Your purple and grey are beautiful.
Those are exactly the colors we had for our wedding 16 years ago (on the 8th!)!!! They're so beautiful ❤ I love watching your vids-- you have so much fun, and it obviously brings you a lot of joy... it's fabulous 😊
You reminded me my parents anniversary was Aug 8th. We have so many birthdays in Aug now that I don't always remember.
Happy Anniversary!!!
Love the colours. Would be interesting to see the variations you could get by changing the percentage of iron. It could be an amazingly subtle gradient set.
I think especially if I increased the intensity of the logwood - maybe starting gray and getting more and more purple?
Also, logwood usually packs a real punch, so I'd possibly question the quality of the dye extract if you repeat the test with less water and higher WOF%. And you should have lots of dye left over for 1 or 2 exhaust baths 😅🤔 Logwood works well in a solar dye method too! I'd also leave your yarns to cool in the mordant bath overnight too ❤ Love your videos as I don't know much about acid dyeing but know more about natural dyeing, so it's nice to see your experiments!! ❤ awesome you got such great results from Indigo! I'm yet to set up a vat, but I think this year I shall finally get round to doing it! Thank you for the inspiration/push ❤😅xxx
I'm so excited!
Last Minute Laura has some real good natural dying videos.I think she did one with the wood and used iron to shift color. (But without looking, I could be wrong) Either way the colors came out beautiful
It looks like iron is a good color modifier - making things a bit muddier or something.
dont worry according to my university dyeing teacher, if you rinse or not it seem not to matter that much. in class the teacher said that iron "saddens" the colour, yes you can use iron nails also copper pipe. natural dyers have jars of not only plant matter, but jars of iron and copper pieces. you use them to change colour of the dye.
This makes me feel a bit better. I'm curious about your take when I add iron with the cochineal. I wonder about timing of when to add iron. For whatever reason the Earthues booklet said how much iron to use, but just not HOW to use it. :D
@@ChemKnitsTutorials well as i am just a student, the professor was non committal on when. the talk was on what sort of effect you were looking to do, and we were to try things.
@@ChemKnitsTutorials i have a liking to do ecco dyeing with tansey leaves and copper as a modifier with alum as the mordent i have gotten an interesting teal around the edges of the leaves.
I'm looking forward to _whatever_ you choose to do next. I wish you could do your 5x5 grid comparisons on some of the variable factors, but the processes entailed in using natural dyes with mordants would seem to make that more than a bit impractical!
I think they also require a lot more heat than my cold process dyeing allows. Once could set up a grid system and then double boil them.... but I think it might be easier to do a 1x5 vs 5x5
Of course now I'm thinking about if I can do this. :D
@@ChemKnitsTutorials Could you set up a sort of double boiler arrangement using Mason jars in your catering steam pan? Or maybe instead of the tallish Mason jars, some kind of ramekins or oversized custard cups?
So interesting to watch you dye with natural dyes and question what happens! When I used iron water with acorns, I soaked the yarn in the acorn dye bath first, then added the iron and watched the transformation from mucky brown to black. But it has not been easily repeatable. I think strength of Iron water, too hot, not hot enough... Very sensitive!
It is possible i need to pay closer attention to the temperature of my water, too.
I really would like it if you were to do a video on safe disposal of artificial and natural dyes and mordants. Disposing of leftover mordant baths, depending on which metal it is made from, can be dangerous to kids and pets if dumped out in the back yard willy-nilly, and if copper sulfate gets into a storm drain that leads to a local stream or river, it can play havoc on the water course's ecosystem.
This is a great suggestion. This is one reason why I don't use copper sulfate for a mordant even though it can apparenty make cool colors.
Ooh just listened to the end of your video - don't go above 2% WOF for iron, it will ruin the wool! Xxx
This is super helpful, thank you!!!
Can you use vibrant hair dye to dye yarn . Like manic panic, artic fox, those kind of direct hair dyes
Maybe? I've never tried mainly because I've seen how these fantasy colors fade so quickly with washing on hair, it makes me think that they wouldn't have longevity on yarn.