Comments for Vähän villoja

Comment on Dyeing, part 2 by tiuku

tiuku — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:07:56 +0000

I’m not a very skillful in the art of natural dyeing, but some small (the amount of yarn is not counted in) experiments have teached me now the basics. I believe you know much more about dyeing than me. But we’ll meet at some point on the spring, I believe, let’s talk then!

Comment on Dyeing, part 2 by Laura

Laura — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:45:26 +0000

I did some dyeing with natural colors (various flowers and leaves, mostly) in my teen years in the summer, and I’ve been dreaming about doing that again sometime – in my memories it was a lot of fun. I used ready-spun wool, though – Pirkanmaan kotityö’s Pirkka yarn. When se meet up, it would be nice to hear your dyeing experiences and views. I could show you the yarns I dyed, as well. (I actually still have some of those still waiting to be knitted…)

Comment on Experimental dyeing by tiuku

tiuku — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:32:52 +0000

Leena,

thank you for explaining. I haven’t done much dyeing before, I’m more interested in plain textile making, but this has been very exiting anyway. Ellinor doesn’t mind, she approves discussion with knowledgeable people.

meep;

pics are coming as soon as my net is up again – there’s something wrong in our internet connection (I’m now in datasalen).

Comment on Experimental dyeing by meep.

meep. — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:32:11 +0000

We want photos!

Comment on Experimental dyeing by Leena

Leena — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 07:37:05 +0000

Yes, I agree, there is no difference in color of the dried or fresh heather, but I thought that if you had fresh you would need more, but maybe not. I have dyed only with fresh heather in the summer(never had time to dry it).
Iron also is a mordant and it binds color sometimes even stronger to the wool (I have found the lightfastness very good with only iron) than alum, but it doesn’t give bright colors, and yellows usually turn greyish or brownish green, sometimes to very nice khaki color, but sometimes ugly grey. If you have alum also, the colors are more yellowish green. The only thing is that you need to use only very small amounts of iron, so that it doesn’t harm the wool. I think in the old books, the amount is too big, but that’s just my opinion, not a fact.
(I hope your teacher doesn’t mind my comment to your dyeings)

Comment on Experimental dyeing by tiuku

tiuku — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:15:52 +0000

My heather is dried and actually picked after blooming, but Ellinor says she hasn’t noticed any real difference.

Do you mean that it isn’t necessary to mordant the yarn at all? That would be the most authentic way, I think. I maybe have to take a bit more hand-spunned yarn to experiment with that, too.

Comment on Experimental dyeing by Leena

Leena — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:27:06 +0000

Sounds interesting, I have to look later how your yarns turned out. It is always so exciting to read about dyeing experiments:)
If you don’t mordant with alum at all, you will propably get darker green in an iron cauldron. With alum it is more yellowish green, even in an iron cauldron, I think… possibly…
Is your heather dried or fresh?

Comment on Hemp, wool and spinning by Amie

Amie — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:27:18 +0000

I’d love to see photos of your hemp when it’s done…great blog!