My friend Annalisa (of tree skirt and Virgin Islands fame) came to visit a few weeks ago. She was in town to see family and attend a natural dye workshop at Earthues. We had a great time catching up and driving around Seattle. We even went on a tour of Theo's Chocolate Factory, which I now totally recommend to everyone.
Beside having a great time with her, Annalisa's visit was made even sweeter because she passed on some leftover dye from the workshop!
(left: coccineal with citric acid. center: coccineal. left: madder)
Coccineal is a scale bug harvested from cactus and dyes wool deep red-purples. This was second-hand dye and I still got great pink-reds! The orange is from the same dyebath but I added citric acid crystals to change the pH.
Madder, of British Red Coat fame, comes from the red roots of the Madder/Rubia tinctorum plant) and dyes wool a deep red-orange. This second-hand dye was somewhat exhausted but still gave a nice orange-yellow.
I love the results!
from left to right:
coccineal+citric acid; madder; coccineal; coccineal, madder overdye on a a previously failed dye attempt)
I still have a few quarts of indigo dye to use! Very excited because I love indigo.
There was a logwood dyebath, but it was exhausted ("used up") and produced a pale grey on wool yarn...I'll probably re-dye it in indigo.
3 comments:
Beautiful colors, Tess!! I'll be excited to see what you make with these yarns.
Beautiful colors! You certainly are ambitious . How do you find time to do this with a new baby? Elliott is really growing.
so pretty!
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