I’ve been trying out some natural dyes from my new natural dye kit, and decided to start a dye diary — a DYERY — on my blog, to keep track of successes, failures need not be mentioned. On the summer solstice I bought myself the Earthhues Color Collection Kit which promises to be completely safe and I love the motto on the instruction booklet “What comes from the earth shall not harm the earth” ~~ I’m on board! The kit includes everything needed for one or two indigo vats as well as a dozen other color dye extracts, and mordants, plus color shifters, for both protein fibers as well as cellulose fibers, really quite a value when you open the box and it is packed with pouches and jars and a booklet too. I want to have my basic primary natural colors which is indigo, madder, and weld, but wanted to explore with some neutral and golden tones too, so these were my first two experiments all using 10/2 mercerized cotton for weaving …

Indigo: The dye used indigo extract powder, lye powder to make the vat alkaline and thiourea dioxide to reduce the oxygen in the bath — very fast — but the chemicals did not smell at all pleasant. I think next indigo dye vat I will try the well-known “1-2-3 fructose vat” which uses powdered food-grade lime (calcium hydroxide) to make the vat alkaline and fructose powder to reduce the oxygen. The color striations are from when I tied some warps for ikat that I posted in Knotty after being very inspired by the Japanese ikat video. I hope to try my first ikat weaving very soon, but that will be a different post. As I tied off the ikat warps 5 inches center-to-center, I figured I could go ahead and wind into a ball and align the ikat patterning on the loom when I weave.

Madder, Weld, Pomegranite, and mix of Wattle & Quebracho: Four at once, after scouring and then mordanting the cotton fiber with aluminum acetate solution. The four dyes simmered in separate pint jars in a huge electric 12 quart instant pot that I got just for dying, scouring, and mordanting with, and can set different sized jars inside of the heating water, which makes a very clean and flexible heat source. I don’t know which dye jars were the pomegranite and waddle/quebracho as I didn’t label the dye jars, a bad oversight out of inexperience to run up to the house and get pen to mark the jars with writing on rubberbands ~ next time for sure!

♣   Dye Notes  ♣

• Indigo: No need to mordant, and I forgot to scour. I didn’t weigh the parts, just used the vat recipe in the booklet which was in tsp/tbsp/cup measures — it really is magic, the blue is a beautiful earthy warm blue, truly a gorgeous blue light, medium, or dark shades.
• Madder (15% wof “weight of fiber”): Came out exactly how I predicted, a beautiful warm brick red. In future if I want it darker, I think I’ll just overdye a grey or brown yarn or wool, and that should be perfect.
• Weld (15% wof): Came out neon bright yellow, and ended up borrowing little bits of dye out of the other jars to tone it down. In future, I’ll only use weld in combo with other dyes or overdye another color like grey or brown, should be lovely.
• Pomegranite (15% wof): What I suspect was the lovely gold, bottom left, but I can’t be sure. Once I find out for sure, I will repeat this percentage of wof because its a perfect gold.
• Wattle & Quebracho (12% & 3% wof): What I suspect is the rosy beige the booklet recipe listed.