Friday, August 30, 2024

Natural Dyeing: Hardy Hibiscus (With Alum Mordant)


Also known as rose mallow, rose of Sharon, or althea. There are a variety of species in the genus. Mine are apparently hibiscus syriacus, and we have quite a few in the yard. Ours range from pale to dark pink and lavender. I have one solid white one. Some commercial hybrids come in red. The dark pink and red ones are said to be the best for dyeing.

Both of the natural dyeing books I'm referencing (Wild Color and A Dyer's Garden) give instructions for dyeing with hardy hibiscus, so I picked up tidbits from each.

Collecting the dyestuff

This was a bit of a challenge because I wanted 8 ounces but didn't have enough blooming at any one time to collect enough. One book says the flowers don't freeze or dry well, the other said they can dried. Rita Buchanan suggests picking every day or two and storing in the fridge in a plastic bag. This is what I ended up doing. By the time I had 8 ounces, the ones on the bottom were going bad so I had to discard them. I should have weighed what was left, but didn't think of it at the time. 

Preparing the dyepot


  • Pour boiling water over the flowers
  • Simmer flowers for about 30 minutes.
  • Strain

Dyeing the fiber


Jenny Dean's book shows color samples of hardy hibiscus dyed both with amd without a mordant. For this batch, I used alum mordanted fiber.

I had previously soaked some fiber and had it ready for the dyepot. This time, I didn't wait for the bath water to cool, but added the wet fiber to it while hot.
  • Add the wet fiber
  • Heat to a simmer
  • Simmer 30 to 60 minutes
  • Let steep overnight as it cools (can be left longer for deeper color)
Note: when first checked on the pot after putting it on the heat, it was at a rolling boil. I turned it down and left it in the dyebath for close to an hour.

The Results

Right out of the dyepot, still damp.

Nowhere near the lavender shades in the dye books!

Here it is after being washed, rinsed, and dried.


Analysis

I appeared to have good color in the dyepot, so what happened? Several things come to mind.
  • I was light on the dyestuff because some of the flowers had spoiled. Did I have too few flowers? Possible solution would be to collect fewer flowers and dye smaller quantities of wool. 
  • Did some of the spoiled flowers get in the dyebath and affect results?
  • Did the active boiling have anything to do with it?
  • Was it my water (dyed with city tap water)
  • Something else?
  • On the other hand, here's a quote from Rita Buchanan, A Dyer's Garden page 81.
"Dark hibiscus flowers give fascinating, impressive, but unpredictable colors . . . Every time I use this plant, I get different colors—lilac, purple, mauve, green, gray, brown, black—but they're all interesting and attractive."

In light of that, if I had been going for a light gray, I'd be pleased with the results. It is a lovely color. As it was, however, I was disappointed because I wanted something different. Maybe calling it silver-gray will take the edge off the disappointment. 😉

Definitely, more experimenting is in order.

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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Loom Wrestling

At the end of the day, when all I want to do is to sit down, listen to an audiobook, and weave a bit, loom wrestling is a bit of a put off. But sometimes it must be done. In the case of getting my table loom dressed to start weaving my rag rug, the problem was the extra heddles.


Using the full width of a reed meant the extra heddles were in the way. The warp needs to travel straight back from front to back beams. The extra heddles become an obstacle that push the warp to the side and mess up the tension. The solution is to remove them from the heddle bars. 

I find removing heddles super easy on my Glimakra, but the table loom is another matter. Each shaft consists of an upper and lower heddle bar, held in place by a screw.

Top heddle bar

Bottom heddle bar

Okay, so just remove the screws, remove the heddles, and replace the screws. Piece of cake, right? Except that the screws were pretty much frozen in place. Thankfully, not rusted, but considering the loom is circa 1960s, it's not inconceivable that they are stuck. 

I tried oiling them, but that didn't work. So I oiled again and left to sit overnight. Still stuck. 


It finally occurred to me to try loosening the screw from the back. I grasped the metal tab with pliers and wiggled it one way and the other until the screw loosened. Then I could unscrew it with a screwdriver. Once the extra heddles were removed, I had to put the heddle shafts back together again. This would have been easier if I had three hands, but eventually I got it. 

So, after a bit of loom wrestling, I finally got it warped. And the warp is tensioned and hemstitched.


I'm finally ready to weave.

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Saturday, August 24, 2024

Natural Dyeing: Pear Leaves, Part 2


After the first experiment dyeing with pear leaves, there were several things that I was curious about. 
  1. Exhaust dyeing
  2. Afterbath (copper)
  3. Will the leaves release more color in subsequent dyepots as Dean suggests in her book?
I have several pear trees, so this information might be good to know for future reference. 

I started by dividing the leftover dye water into two pots, amounts about equal. One, I used for the exhaust dyeing experiment, the other for the afterbath experiment. I used half the amount of alum mordanted fiber for each experiment, thoroughly soaked in water before adding to the dyepot. 

To compare results, here is the sample from the original pear leaf dyepot.

original dye color

1. Exhaust dyeing

This is simply reusing the same dyepot after some / most of the color has been taken up in the original dye job. I used 4 ounces of mordanted fiber for this experiment, but followed simmering and soaking times roughly the same as the original dye lot.

exhaust bath dye color

2. Copper afterbath

Or maybe it's afterdip. I dissolved  a rounded half-teaspoon of copper sulfate into the other half of the original dyebath and added 4 ounces of fiber from the original dye lot.

original dyed fiber with copper afterbath

Here's a comparison of the original dyed fiber and my first two experiments.

Left: copper afterbath. Middle: original dye color. Right: exhaust dyed fiber.

3. Re-using the pear leaves

This idea came from  Jenny Dean's book. In her general instructions for extracting color from plant leaves (page 48) she states,

"The leaves reserved from the first color extraction can be simmered again."

That roused my curiosity and I decided to try this with the pear leaves from the original dye bath. I followed the same procedure, but used half as much fiber in the dye pot. Here's what I got . . .

color from re-used pear leaves

It's very similar to the exhaust dyed sample, but I think it's a clearer yellow, i.e. a little less gold. From my reading I'm understanding that different pigments in the dyestuffs are released at different times and temperatures. I don't know if this would consistently be true for pear leaves, but it's an interesting tidbit to keep in mind for future reference.

I'm not sure if the camera and computer do the difference justice, but here are the similar samples side by side.

Left: exhaust bath fiber. Right: re-used leaves dyed fiber.
In hand, the exhaust dyed have a more golden nuance.

So, lots of color from pear leaves. Further experiments could include different mordants and afterbaths. For these, I need to get iron to try for mordanting and dipping. 

In addition to the leaves, the bark is said to yield a pinkish-purple color. I'll have to try that one too, if I can figure out how to harvest bark without hurting the tree. 

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Thursday, August 22, 2024

Natural Dyeing: Pear Leaves, Part 1


After two dyeing projects that took repeated simmering and steeping to extract the color, I was ready for something a little simpler. I reckon natural dyeing is a summer project for me, when fresh plant material is widely available. I'm trying to take advantage of seasonal resources while I can. The directions for using pear leaves came from Jenny Dean's Wild Color.

Her recipe calls for at least equal weight of leaves to fiber. More, for stronger color. Color can be extracted by either cold soaking or simmering. I will have to try the cold method sometime, but for now, I'm thinking I'd get stronger color with heat, so that's what I opted to do. 

Day 1: Making the dyebath


  • Dyebath amounts should be at least 1:1 for leaves to fiber. I used:
    • 12 ounces pear leaves for 8 ounces fiber
    • 2 gallons water
  • Pour boiling water over the leaves and let sit. 
  • Or, place leaves in several gallons of water, bring to a boil, and simmer for an hour or two. 
  • Let steep overnight until cool.
Note: the leaves smelled like cooking spinach while they simmered. 

Day 2: Dye day

  • Strain out the leaves (and save for another dyeing experiment).
  • Add thoroughly wetted, mordanted fiber to the pot. (I used alum and cream of tartar.)
  • Simmer for 30 to 60 minutes or so, until desired color is reached.
  • Let steep overnight until cool.

Day 3
  • Remove the fiber
  • Wash with mild dish detergent and rinse until the water is clear.
  • Squeeze out excess water (or run through the spin-only cycle in the washing machine) and lay out to dry. 

The bark of the pear tree can also be used for dyeing and gives pinkish/purplish colors. I'll have to give that a try sometime in the future. Next, however, I wanted to experiment a bit with this dyebath and see what other colors I could get.


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Monday, August 19, 2024

Bathroom Rag Rug: Draft & Calculations For Warping

I got the brown rug warp I decided on and then started on my calculations for warping my table loom. My 10-dent reed is 23.25 inches wide, so at most I could thread 230 warp ends, with two dents left over for floating selvedges. I had to figure out how to fit the threading draft to this, to make sure the pattern look on the rug looks symmetrical. 

The Recipe Book gives this for the threading: 

Read right to left

Motif
This is one complete motif. Fortunately, the Recipe Book PDF includes WIF files, so I was able to have a drawdown draft without having to work it out myself.

Two repeats of the motif would be 212 warp ends. Subtract that from 230, and I have 18 extra dents, 9 on each side. Should I leave them empty and make a narrower rug? Add a border? Or, widen the edge blocks to compensate for draw-in, which always makes the motif narrower on the sides. I decided to simply repeat the beginning and ending threading, to "fatten" the blocks on the edges. 

With that decided, the warp was measured and the reed sleyed, so the next step will be threading the heddles. 

Here's the draft straight from the Recipe Book WIF file, tweaked for color, but without the extra threading on the selvedges. Tabby shots will square up the blocks.

You can click to enlarge.

In other weaving news, Dan has informed me that the next phase of his project will be dustless. So I can take the dust covers off my floor loom and resume weaving on the lap robe. Weaving on it is a relaxing way to spend a 30-minute break, so I'm glad to start working on it again. 
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