I've got a group of wools to dye & overdye when the weather cooperates. This is the first time I've dyed wool.

Last summer I picked up a natural dye at the Hemlock Fiber Festival & think I'll use this for the wool. The dye I got is Alkanet Root, about 4oz, which is enough to dye a pound or so of wool.

The colors my source said I could get are: no mordant - grey/blue; Alum (deepens) - purple; Blue Vitriol (blues) - brown/purple; Copper (saddens) - purple/black; and Tin (brightens) - deep mauve. I have some Alum I could use.

Has anyone any experience with this? My water is from a well & has high calcium, so I need to take that into account I think. It hasn't bothered previous dyeing.

Comments

Sun, 08/02/2009 - 14:29

dyeing2weave (not verified)

I believe it works better if you extract the dye with alcohol first -

Here's a source - http://naturalpigments.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=455-12S

Sun, 08/02/2009 - 17:27

Sara von Tresckow

 Alkanet needs to be pulverized and mixed with alcohol - 65g powdered root to 1 liter of alcohol - reaised to 40 degrees Celsius (Dominique Cardon - "Natural Dyes", p. 60

I've had good results also by pouring the grocery store denatured over the whole roots and letting soak overnight prior to dyeing.

This plant must be mordanted with alum to be fast.

Sun, 08/02/2009 - 17:47

debmcclintock

Consider using distilled water for one batch and your well water for another batch,  You'll probably get two different colors and then you can consider which water you will want to use going forward. 

Mon, 08/03/2009 - 11:25

jemwork (not verified)

Lucky for me, its already powdered. Would cream of tartar also help to make it fast? Or would that just change the color?

Mon, 08/03/2009 - 11:30

jemwork (not verified)

That is a great site for information. I really liked the in depth history for natural dyes. Thanks for sharing!

Thu, 10/01/2009 - 22:23

jemwork (not verified)

Never did get to that wool. I'm still looking it over, while other things go on. I do have some pictures of my cottons, dyed earlier in the small bit of summer we had back in June.