Japanese Indigo - That Irresistible Blue

This spring I sowed some Japanese Indigo. I have done that once before, but only really got one plant to live, but this time I had about eight healthy plants.

They got off to a slow start in the cold and wet Icelandic spring, but once I figured out that I really shouldn't expect a summer and covered them with fleece, they took off and turned into a vigorous bunch.

I harvested them all at the same time in fall and dyed some Alpaca wool with the thought of giving it to my daughter who wanted to make a simple garter stitch shawl.

Here is the method I used. A tutorial of sorts.

I cut the plants, stem and all and take them home.
I remove the leaves from the stems and chop them finely. I do this immediately after I get home. The leaves do not keep well and can not be dried.
I stuff the leaves into a jar and pour fresh water from the tap over the leaves. I put the jar in a pot - I always put a washcloth in the bottom of the pot - and heat it gently to 50°C / 120°F.
Then I sieve the liquid and squeeze out every last drop from the leaves. This time I actually felt that there was more colour left in the leaves, so I pout some more water on the leaves and heated them again. Just to be sure that I got every molecule of indigo into my dye liquid.
The resulting liquid was dark, dark blue. I was thrilled.
Then it is time for the stick blender to add air to the solution. This developes the indigo, although it is in an insoluble form. So the next step is to make the indigo water soluble...
...by adding hydrosulfite or spectrality or colour remover. I sprinkle about a teaspoonful over the surface and wait 30-45 minutes to see if the liquid turn to yellow. If not I add some more. Here I had moved the dye liquid to a pot so that I could be sure to keep the right temperature. I most often put the pot in another pot and heat that. This way I can control the temperature better.
When the liquid turns a green yellow I can carefully add the wool while I am careful not to introduce any air into the solution. I am careful to have wetted the wool really well before. That means I let it sit in water at least an hour before I dye it. And with wool and indigo, I make sure that the wool has been sitting in water that is the same temperature as the indigo solution (which is 50°C). I any air into the solution.
I let it sit for 10-20 minutes to get a dark colour. Shorter time for a lighter colour.
Then I pull it up gently and watch the magic transformation. It very quickly turns a lovely turquoise colour, but that is short lived. The colour soon developes into the indigo blue.
I shake the wool to air it properly. Then I let it sit for at least the same amount of time that I let it sit in the solution to fully develop the colour.
And then I re dip the wool or put another skein into the dye liquid until all the colour is gone. The colour gets progressively lighter. But all of them beautiful.

It is very hard to get the japanese indigo to flower in the northern hempishere. But I still have one plant left that I took inside. It hasn't flowered, and I may just cut it down soon and dye from it.

It's such a lovely blue.

The Day of the Woman - First Day of Góa

Today is the first day of the old Nordic month Góa.  Góa is thought to have been a goddess is the old Nordic religion, but nothing is known of her other than the first day of her month is dedicated to women.
The name is konudagur in Icelandic, but kona is the word used for both woman and wife.

Similarily, the first day of Þorri, the previous month, is dedicated to men or husbands.  The name is bóndadagur, and bóndi means farmer or man as in the ending of the Icelandic word for husband, húsbóndi.

Those days are still celebrated here and they are much more traditional than Valentines day, mothers day and fathers day, all of which are imports by flower merchants.  Both days are celebrated gratulating the wife or the husband on the occasion of the day and it is now traditional to give flowers as a present.  In the olden day the husbands were supposed to hop around the farm on one leg, wearing only their shirt, but dressed in one pant leg, draging the other behind.  No similar feat was required of the women, as far as I know.  Not surprisingly, few (if any) men keep to this tradition today.

But anyway, today I get flowers from my hubby and a cake from the bakery.  All of which I am grateful for.  But I have to admit that I am a bit more excited about the flowers that I am in the process of making myself.  The wonderful flower borders for the national costume.  I had a hard time deciding on a pattern and ended up drawing my own, using elements from older patterns.

I really wanted to have flowers that I know and like and most of the patterns were too stylized to be recognizable.  Haveing been brought up by my biologist parents and taught about plants from an early age, I didn't want that.  So I searched for flower patterns that were recognizable and made a sketch of those.  The flowers I chose were Eyrarrós / Dwarf fireweed (Epilobium latifolium) at the top.  It is a member of the Evening primrose family and the national flower of Greenland.  It is quite magenta in colour and I used Cochineal to dye the embroidery silk pink.   I also love the tiny blue flowers of Gleym-mér-ey / Forget-me-not (Myosotis arvensis) and Woad blue captures the hue of those beautiful little flowers perfectly.

I also wanted to use Holtasóley /Mountain avens (Dryas octopetala) a member of the rose family, with eight white petals and a fairly large yellow middle.  It is the national flower of Iceland, but since white is never used in the special embroidery, that posed a problem.  I toyed with the idea of making it yellow, but gave that up altogether.  Instead I settled for two indistinct half opened buds from and old pattern.  That could be the common buttercup and I dyed a strong yellow with Weld and a darker one using lichen.  And at the bottom I put a half opened Eyrarrós again to repeat the pink.  The flowers are emerging from a flower pot, a well used symbol of the 18th century and a very common feature in many of the older patterns.  For the flower pot I intend to use both gold embroidery and the lovely golden yellow from the lichen Parmelia saxatilis (Shield lichen, or Litunarskóf in Icelandic).  It is the one that gives the lovely aroma.

I really like the outcome and look forward to starting to embroider this.  Dyeing all the colors wasn't as much trouble as I had feared and I love the outcome.  They are just gorgeous.  And since I also plan to knit a traditional triangular woolen shawl, I used the opportunity to dye the very fine wool for that, since the tiny amount of embroidery silk left me with plenty of dyeing liquor left to use.  Those colours also came out beautifully.  I have to admit that now I am getting really impatient to get the full costume.

The process of embroidering is the same as is used in Gold embroidery.  The Icelandic tradition uses both silk and silver and gilded silver thread.  I love the colorful silk and it was used on the older types of costumes and it really pops with the background of black velvet.  I have been attending a course in learning to embroider in this way and it does take a lot of time and practice.  The process of making the flower borders is also quite involved and laborious.  But hopefully well worth it once it's all done.

Lupine dyeing - Lupinus nootkatensis

The Alaskan Lupine (Lupinus nootkatensis) is one of those invasive species that are impossible to eradicate.  But it is pretty with it's blue and violet flowers and it does give great colour as a dye plant.  The leaves will give a good yellow, but it is the flowers that are more interesting because they give very bright and beautiful greens.  Most of the time lime green.

I got some pretty amazing colours this summer.  I went with my daughter to pick them down by the river where they grow in frightening abundance.  We picked the darkest coloured flowers that we could find and stripped them from the stalks.  We were careful to remove all leaves, because we didn't want too much of the yellow colour.   After picking a few full plastic bags we went home and dumped them into a large pot and filled it up with water.  The flowers simmered for over an hour and then was left to cool a bit before squeezing all the liquid from the flowers.

The liquid is a very deep wine colour, but the most common colour that comes out of the dyeing in a strong lime green.  It never ceases to amaze me, the tricks that colour plays in this process.  I used alpaca yarn to dye, skeins of 50g /1,8oz.  I've been using that for most of my dyeing lately, since I want to knit a soft and comfy sweater.  The Icelandic wool isn't necessarily what one wants next to the skin.

Since I didn't have any pre-mordanted yarn, I decided to mordant simultaneously with the dyeing, something which I haven't done before.  And because I am forgetful I first dumped wetted yarn into the pot and started to heat it up gently (it's important to take at least an hour to heat wool up to the 80-90°C / 180-200°F or so that is needed to dye) only to realize that I had completely forgotten to put in the mordant.

I added 10% (5 gr.) alum and 2% (1 gr.) cream of tartar, which I dissolved in hot water.  And then proceeded to heat up the liquid to about 85°C / 190°F.  I kept that temperature for an hour.  When I lifted the yarn out of the pot, I was floored by the turquoise colour that I got.  I have never seen a  colour like that from Lupine, so I wasn't about to chance loosing by letting it stay in the dye liquid any longer.  Therefore I didn't let the yarn sit and cool, but took it up and let it air cool before washing it out in clear water and some detergent.  The second skein I put into the dye liquid turned a very pretty green, I added the same amount of mordant to the dye liquid.  And finally I put in a third skein and got a lighter green.

Now I had to repeat this to see if I could replicate the colour.  I was a bit nervous since I had not really been careful to write everything down as soon as I did it.  That is a big mistake in dyeing.  Really, seriously.  One needs to take very careful notes and write everything that one does, times, tempertures, any deviations from the norm.  Just write everything down.

I had to try to replicate what I had done and write down every step of the way and lo and behold, I did manage to get almost the same colour.  I haven't tested it to see how lightfast it is.  I guess I should do that.  I did however see a shawl that someone had done with beautiful yellows from lupine and greens from lupine overdyed with indigo.  And there was no sign of fading in that.  However, I realize that the flower colours are the ones that are the most likely to fade in strong sunlight.  But on the bright side, there has been very little sun here this summer, so that isn't such a huge problem anyway.

Ladies bedstraw - Galium verum

Red colours are difficult to get from nature.  Madder root is one of the best known plants for this, but it is not a native of Iceland.  Galium verum, however, is a member of the Madder family and a native and was used to get red tones.

The roots of the plant are very slender, so it does take quite a lot of effort to get them.  I only managed to dig up a little bit of the roots, but tried to use it for dye anyway.  The result slightly disappointing, but that is most likely because I wasn't watching the dye pot carefully enough and the wool started to boil.  That is not good.  It makes the colour browner than it would otherwise be, besides felting the wool.

All red colours should be dyed at a slightly lower temperature than simmer in order to get the most red dyes.  There are both yellow and red dyes in the roots and I may try to use the dye material a second time and see if I get redder tones.

It shouldn't come as a surprise how much colour the unmordanted yarn took, since roots contain tannins that work as mordants.  The Alum mordanted wool is a redder shade, but the Rhubarb mordant gives a yellower tone.

The Iron gave a light brown and the copper turned the yarn a greyish brown.  I like both of those colours and am slightly amused by my new appreciation of all shades of browns and greys.  The acid lightened the colors quite considerably, while the alkaline didn't really change the colour that much.

The flower tops of the plant can also be used to get a yellow colour so I might try that next year.

Weld - Reseda luteola

Another biennial, but this time one gets the most brilliant yellow colours.  I was a bit skeptical about growing Weld.  I mean, who needs more yellow?  But I had read that this is the clearest and most lightfast yellow one can get and it's supposed to give a very pretty green when overdyed with Indigo.

The plant is a native of Europe, and also grows in the US.  It has been used as a dye plant  for hundreds of years.  Reputedly it was used to dye the robes of the vestal virgins in roman times, and apparently was only used for womens clothes.

The plant is a biennial like Woad and also grows in a rosette in the first year.  The leaves are much smaller, quite thin and long.  The second year, when it flowers, the flower spike can reach 150 cm.

I had no trouble growing this plant.  It germinated very well and also grew quite well in my vegetable garden, even though that is a little wet.  The plant likes chalky and dry soil, so I might find a better place for it next year.  The yellow it produced was spectacular.  I have never seen such strong clear yellow from plants.  It was almost too much.  I have a small skein of Alpaca wool that I dyed and am waiting to overdye it with Indigo or Weld.  Some say that the dried plant material produces slightly less brilliant colours.  I will find out since I dried some leaves to use later this winter.  But when the plant was used commercially in large quantities it was always used in the dried state.

The unmordanted wool didn't really take any colour and the Rhubarb mordant didn't turn yellow, just a beige.  But the Iron and Copper really produced pretty lime to olive green that I could see using.  Acid practically removed the colour, while alkaline just made it a tad stronger and slightly more orange in tone.

Woad - Isatis tinctoria

My first dyeing experiment was with Dandelion flowers which I picked where they grew as weeds.  Then I tried Rumex root and I have to say that there is something extremely satisfying in using something useless like a weed to make something useful and even beautiful.  The next level is to grow plants specifically for the purpose of using them to dye.  There are a few traditional dye plants that are particularly good but none of them are natives.  So I bought some seeds and sowed them this spring.  They all grew very well and as a consequence I have been busy experimenting this summer.

I have tried to be organized and have documented all my steps and I set up a system to store my samples.  For me, it was a piece of carton, punched with lots of holes and folded.  This way it's easy to attach the yarn samples.  Then I put all the cartons in a big ring binder.

I planned the experiments early this spring and the plan was to use:

1 piece of un-mordanted wool
1 piece of wool mordanted with Rhubarb leaves (since I'm a bit fascinated with Rhubarb)
1 piece of wool mordanted with Chrome
6 pieces of wool mordanted with Alum...

...5 of which would get the following treatment:

1 piece modified with Iron water
1 piece modified with Copper water
1 piece modified with an acid solution (citric acid)
1 piece modified with an alkaline solution (washing soda)
1 piece modified with Tin

I also planned to dye a sample of alum mordanted cotton and linen, as well as a small piece of silk, but for some reason I kept forgetting to add those to the dye bath.  Also, I never used the Chrome or Tin.  That will have to wait till next year.

I was very excited to experiment with the Woad.  To get a blue colour from green leaves is like magic and I wanted to try to do that myself.  I probably have well over 20 books about dyeing and have read them all and most more than once.   My favorites are two books that I have by Jenny Dean, especially Wild Colour, and I also like very much a book that was written by a couple, Dye Plants and Dyeing by John and Margaret Cannon and illustrated beautifully by Gretel Dalby-Quenet.

Woad, Isatis tinctoria, is a biennial and a native of Europe.  It grows so easily that it is classified as a noxious weed in some places in the US.  I found it very easy to grow here.  I sowed only 6 seeds and they all came up.  I'll be sowing more next spring since one needs quite a bit of the leaves to get a strong colour.   The best colour is from first year leaves, And the plant is a gready feeder so give it plenty of nitrogen rich fertilzer.  To get an harvest of fresh seeds one needs to let the plant grow in the second year.  Woad leaves need to be used when fresh, so no freezing or drying will work.  The process is very similar to that of Indigo dyeing, but Woad leaves do not tolerate too much heat, i.e. no boiling.

One can harvest the Woad a few times, I got three harvests before the cold set in.  It's important to weigh the leaves to know how much wool can be dyed.  I had about 120 grams, from my first harvest. Not a whole lot, but I did manage go get a very pretty blue.  The blue of Woad is much lighter than the dark blue of Indigo and I don't think of Woad as a substitute for Indigo, but rather a completely different blue.

The leaves were chopped and then I poured hot water over them and let it sit for an hour.  The water should turn a sherry colour.  When the temperature is about 50°C /120°F the pH should be dropped to 9, using washing soda and then aerated by pouring from one vessel to another until the foam turns blue.  Mine never really turned blue, but a blue green, but it seemed that that was enough.  Then one adds hydrosulphite to reduce the oxygen content of the vat and lets that sit for 30 minutes or so.  The liquid should now be a yellow colour.  This is the stage that the dyeing can take place.  To dye, either yarn or cloth no mardant is needed, just dip it in for a few minutes and take it out again, being careful not to stir any oxygen into the vat.  The fiber will magically turn this pretty blue colour right before your eyes.

Not many dye books speak about modifying Woad dyes colors, but I did that anyway.  I love the un mordanted blue (one more light than the other, that is the second dye bath), but also the greens that came from the Rhubarb mordanted wool and Copper treated.  The latter I just let sit in the modifyer until I see some effect in the change of colour.  I applied no heat, but the time could be anything from a few minutes up to 24 hours.  I could quite see repeating those experiments is larger quantities next summer.  The other colour chart shows some slightly pink colours, those come from the exhaust bath and I treated them in the same way:  Unmordanted, mordanted with Alum, mordanted with Rhubarb (úps - I forgot that one!), aftertreated with Iron, treated with Copper, treated with Acid and treated with Alkaline.

Plant Dyeing - The Basics

Using natural materials to dye textiles, plants mostly, is an incredibly satisfying activity.  It doesn't cost much and guaranties an increased awareness of nature and long outdoor walks.  It is also surprisingly easy to do and predictably unpredictable, as tends to be natures way.

Most plants will yield some colour, the most common (and consequently least desirable) is a yellow green/greenish yellow and brown tones and they may not be very fast to light or washing.  Some plants produce more clear and durable colours and have become known as dye plants.  Just as medicinal plants often have the second latin name of officinale, the ending tinctoria denotes well known dye plants.

All parts of plants can be used to dye.  Many roots give great colour, like Madder and Alkanet.  With some plants it's the leaves that are used, like Woad and Weld.  Or it can be the flowers, as is the case with Dyers Chamomile and Lupin.  Barks of shrubs and trees are also a source of colour, like the exotic Brazilwood and Logwood, or simply try Cherrywood prunings.  Some mushrooms give great colour and of course Lichens.  And then there are the insects, like Cochineal and Lac.  The possibilities for experiments are endless.

Most of the time, one uses one part plant material to one part of wool (or other textile).  The plant material is chopped up into small pieces and simmered (80-90°C/ 180-200°F), most often for an hour or so, to extract the dye.  Flowers should be shimmered at a lower temperature or they tend to give browner colours and barks and tough root need a longer time.  The dye solution is strained and cooled before it can be used to dye wool.

The dyeing process itself is simple.  The easiest textile to dye is wool and it's easier to dye yarn than fabric.  At least to get an even colour.  The wool is wound into skeins and tied in several places (The tie should be in a figure 8).  The skeins need to be wetted (and possibly scoured or washed) before they are put into the dye bath.  To wet the wool let it sit in room temperature water for at least an hour and squeeze out all the air to make sure it is completely we through.

I tend to make the skeins 20-50 grams / 0.7 to 1.7 oz and tie them in 3-4 places.  The wool is immersed in the dye solution and water added if needed.  The wool needs to be able to move around freely in the dye solution.

One thing that is a bit surprising to beginners is that the intensity of the colour isn't determined by the amount of water in the dye solution, but by the ratio of dye material to wool (or other textile material).  So to get lighter colours, one uses less plant material.

Since wool is very sensitive to sudden changes in temperature, it needs to be heated gently.  It should take at least one hour to reach simmer.  Most of the time the wool is simmered for an hour to get good saturation and to make sure the colour is fast.  If the wool reaches the desired strength of colour sooner, it is best to continue to simmer it in clear water for the rest of the time to insure the best fastness.  Just make sure the temperature of the water is equal to that of the dye solution.  The used dye solution can be used to dye more wool until all the dye is exhausted from it.  That way one can get a few increasingly light tones of the same colour.

Most of the time the wool needs to be mordanted before it is dyed.  Without mordants, the dye won't adhere to the wool and simply wash off.  The exemptions, substantive dyes such roots, do not need mordants, and barks contain tannins that are mordants.  Lichen are also substantive as are Onion skins and Indigo.  Mordants are most often metalic salts, the most common being Aluminium sulfate (Alum for short).  Alum and Iron iron (ferrous sulphate) are quite safe to use, while the other frequently used mordants like Tin (stannous chloride), Copper (copper sulphate) and especially Chrome (potassium dichromate) are toxic and need care in handling.  Each colour affects the final colour differently.  Most dyers prefer to work with Alum.  It is not toxic and give clear colours and good fastness.

The best pots to use are stainless steel.  Pots made of Aluminium, Copper or Iron will affect the colours (very much like the mordants) so they can be fun to use.  I have gotten most of my dye pots from thrift stores for very little money, so this doesn't have to be an expensive hobby.  Substantive dyes do not require a dedicated set of dye pots and equipment so they are perfect for beginners.

Distractions

Making soap is just the most satisfying activity that I know.  Ever since I started to make soaps I have been driven by some force that just demands new soaps.  My mind constantly thinking of new things to try.  Some new ingredient.  Some old ingredient in a new way.  A look that I wanted to try to create.  A scent that demanded to be made.  A new colour to strive for.  The ideas came fast and furiously.  So what happened?  Why haven't I been making soap?  I do not know.  Except my mind just wandered off to new things.

This summer I have been taken with dyeing and I bought a lot of used books on the subject.  I've started to organize the dyeing by making sample charts.  It's really interesting to see how the same dyestuff can generate different colours depending on the mordant and modifiers used.  A shift from acid to alkaline can generate a completely different colour, like all soapers know. I make one sample for un mordanted wool, one for rhubarb mordanted and five alum mordanted.  Then I use iron and copper water to modify the colours, as well as citric acid and washing soda to shift the pH.  I have bought Chrome and Tin, but haven't used those yet.  I also try to remember to do samples for cotton, linen and silk, but for some reason I keep forgetting to throw those into the dye pot.   I have assembled about 20 different charts already and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.  I have a lot of natural dye plants that I have yet to try and now the leaves are turning and disappearing before my eyes.  But winter is perfect for using imported dyes like Indigo powder, Cochineal, Logwood, Brazilwood, Annatto and Alkanet as well as onion skins, which I still haven't tried although I have collected a bunch.

Another thing that has taken up some time is my addiction to junk.  I love to go on a treasure hunt at the local thrift store, The Good Shepherd.  I generally walk there every day at lunch, killing two flies in one swoop: I get good exercise and I do it during the lightest time of the day which is essential to keep good spirits in the dark winter that is just about here.  I've picked up some very nice things for very little money.  I got a studded headboard for the spare bedroom for a few dollar and redid that.  I also got the linen drapes and a lovely 80's carved Chinese rug (I've always loved those). And the mattress, a very good quality one, I also got at a thrift store.  And the night stand.  And the daybed thing, which I reupholstered.  In fact that whole room is filled with my finds and it's overflowing with stuff right now.

Just the other day I bought some dining room chairs.  They have coil springs in the seat which is way more comfortable than the modern day version that is used in the Ikea chairs we are currently using.  The chairs aren't really old, they are repro pseudo-rococoish, probably 80's or even 90's, but when I've sanded the frames and painted them with milk paint and reupholstered the seat with some linen, they are going to look great.  I also got this lovely little nightstand, a very simple thing, probably from the 20's or 30's with three drawers all of which have locks.  I'm sanding it down and I think I'll wax it rather than paint it with milk paint (which I find so interesting right now).  Originally the pine would have been painted to look like mahogany, but it had been repainted white when I got it.  I've decided that it will serve as an occasional table between two armchairs in the living room.  I can certainly use the storage space for the small treasures I have yet to find.

Then there is the gardening.  I haven't really kept up with the home garden this year, but the allotment has gotten some attention.  I just managed to harvest the potatoes while it was still reasonably dry.  The only thing that's left in the allotment is some salad, some kale and carrots.  And of course the dye plants, although I have harvested most of the leaves.  I've had the greatest fun and frustrations with learning to dye with Japanese Indigo and Woad.  Achieving a beautiful blue colour as well as a disappointing pinkish gray and slowly becoming wiser and more experienced.  Getting a pure blue from green leaves is just magic.  I love the light blue that comes from Woad.  I still haven't tried traditional Indigo powder.  That will wait till winter.  Except I just used some precious indigo powder in my last soap.  The context was perfect for a blue soap.  So I didn't skimp on the Indigo powder like last time I tried to do blue soap.  Well, the results were unexpected, although they should have been entirely, glaringly obvious.  But that's another post.

Mushroom dyeing - Suillus luteus

Dyeing is fascinating.  One never knows exactly what the outcome is going to be and trying new things to dye from is always a thrill.  I have been especially interested in dying with lichens and mushrooms.  Just because it's different, I guess.  So if I see books about those subjects I just have to have those.

I have been buying quite a few books about dyeing.  Old books mostly.  Some of them I have bought for a few dollars and one I even got for a few cents.  I discovered that old out of print books can be found on the internet and many even on Amazon.  So now I have a pile of books on dyeing, most in English but I've also acquired some in other languages.  I even have one in Finish (a language which I absolutely do not understand, but I've used Google translate to help).

There is always something to learn from a new book, even if on occasion the lesson is mostly about how not to write a book on the subject.  I was lucky enought to find a used book market on a recent trip to Copenhagen and found one book in Danish about plant dyes and another in Swedish about spinning wool and linen.  Can't wait to read them.

It's mushroom collecting time and I've gone once with my mom to collect them.  Although I only picked berries and let her take the mushrooms.  There weren't that many of them of the right size for eating.  As I understand it though, the bigger and more unappetizing, the better they are for dying.

I have mostly gotten beige and brown from mushrooms so far.  The really exotic types that give purples, reds, greens and blues don't seem to grow here at all.  But I was really pleased with the results I got from The Slippery Jack mushroom - Suillus luteus.  My mom had dried quite a few very wet mushrooms in the oven.  The liquid that dripped from them was a bright yellow so she gave it to me to experiment with.

It dyed a wonderful yellow colour, even unmordanted wool.  When I make these experiments I always dye both unmordanted and mordanted wool and then I use modifiers to see if I can change the colour.  I always try an acid and an alkaline soak and also iron water and copper water.  The Suillus turned a very pretty orange in the washing soda bath and a paler yellow in the acid bath.  The iron made it dark brown and the copper turned it a lighter brown.  I love the fact that I didn't have to waste the mushrooms to use their colour and I will certainly go and look for some more after the next rain.  I'm planning to knit a sweater with a pattern where I can use lots of different colours, all with natural dyes.  I've harvested some of my home grown dye plants.  The woad and the Japanese indigo are just incredibly fun to work with.  To make a blue colour from green leaves.  It's magic.

Eco dying - Tutorial, T-shirt makeover

I have made four really unpresentable T shirts come alive using Eco dying.  I love doing the process.  It's really easy to do and it's fun.  I learned a lot by reading India Flynt's book Eco Colour (which I of course bought in the end).

What is needed is a piece of fabric, some string, a collection of leaves and flowers and a small branch from a tree or a bush, ideally slightly smaller than you largest pot.  Since this dyeing is not done with harmful materials it is ok to use your regular pots, but should you decide to start to dye it is generally recommended to have a separate pot for that.

Take an old T-shirt (or a brand new one if you want or any other piece of cloth for that matter, but not synthetic).  I used a dropper to put some Iron water and Copper water spots on the fabric, but that is not necessary.  And be aware that Copper water is poisonous so I do not suggest you use that.  Making Iron water is easy though, just put some rusty object into a jar filled with a mix of two parts water and one part white vinegar (5%).  Let the rusty objects sit there and disintegrate.  The water will turn a rusty (naturally) orange colour in a few weeks.
Now go outside to your garden or the nearest park or wilderness and carefully snip off a few leaves and flowers that catch your fancy.  Naturally, well known dye plants will give the most colour.  In this shirt I used Geranium, Cherry leaves, Apple leaves, Euphorbia leaves (gives a great green colour) among others. Then you can start arranging the leaves and flowers on you fabric.  Some leaves print really well, white others don't really come through, but sometimes act a a resist.
Then start to wrap up the fabric.
The size should be just slightly smaller than the size of the branch you are using.
Wrap the fabric tightly around the branch.  The tannins in the bark will act as a mordant to fix the colors to the fabric.  If you have any rusted objects lying around, like nails, bottle caps, hairpins or anything like that, feel free to add those to you bundle.  The iron will also act as a mordant and will produce gray and black colors and patterns in combination with the plant material.  Alternatively use an iron pot and you'll get a gray colour.
Now tie the bundle tightly with a piece of string.
Now put the bundle into hot water and simmer it for at least an hour or two.  If your bundle is larger than the pot, just turn it a few times during the simmer.  I used the left over dye water from an Avocado pit/skin dyeing experiment.  But clear water can be used.
I let my bundle sit in the dye bath overnight.  Some people steam their bundles.  I've never done that.  Simmering them in water works fine for me, but steaming is a possibility for those who have an easy time doing that.
I let the bundle sit for a while in the sink before I unravelled it.  I am not a patient person, so few hours is all I've ever managed.
The unravelling!  There is no way to predict what comes out, really.  I have started to recognize how some leaves print, but there are always so many factors that affect how this turns out.  One thing for certain is that with rinsing, the colors will fade a bit.
My revamped T-shirt.  The Avocado didn't really stick, but I got some really nice markings. I have done 4 T-'s so far and am still working on an off white sweater that got a small stain.  I was going to trow it out, but decided to try and treat it to the plant experiment.  It's sitting in my cast iron pot (great gray colour) and I'm going to let it sit for a few days to soak up all the iron.  So far it looks very dark gray.  I unravelled it a bit, but saw that the iron water hadn't penetrated the whole bundle, so I'm letting it sit for a bit longer.  I can't wait so see what comes out.  Also, the sweater is part synthetic so I'm curious to see if how the dye will take to a blend.   I've only ever dyed cotton, wool and silk and synthetics don't accept natural dyes that well.  But we'll see.

Dye-ing to tell you

Quite some time ago I saw India Flynt's book Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles in a bookstore.  I was intrigued by it, but didn't buy it since I was traveling and the book is fairly large and cumbersome.  And, besides I thought, I really don't like this mottled effect of muted colours.  I like the vibrants clear colours of flowers and the rainbow.

But that changed.  It really is amazing how ones taste does change when one starts do dye with natural materials.  I have come to a new appreciation of greeny yellows, browns and grays.  And my preference for evenly dyed yarn and fabric... Completely gone.  I now love the mottled, splotsy (I guess that's not a word) effect that can be achieved with natural materials.  I decided to try some eco dyeing the other day.  I started with an old not-very-white-anymore-t-shirt and then progressed onto a silk scarf that I had bought especially to try to do some eco dying.

I loved the whole process.  Picking leaves and flowers and arranging them onto the fabric, wondering which leaves would leave a mark and how they would look.  Admiring the wonderful colours, knowing that the end result will be completely different from the original composition.  Choosing a branch, wondering which wood would give what effect, and then rolling the fabric onto the chosen branch, tightly.  Tying the  whole thing into a tight bundle hoping that the branch would fit the largest pot, which of course it didn't since I didn't measure before I sawed it.  I didn't steam, I boiled the whole lot.  Wonder if the effect is different that way.  Probably.  Add rust water.  Is that too much or too little?  Have I ruined the whole thing?  Then the difficult time to wait for a while.  I've read some people wait for weeks and months.  What are they made of?  I waited an hour and it was difficult.  And whooo!  What fantastic result.  I love the way the scarf turned out.  Those wonderful patterns that I wasn't aware that I was creating.  I really, really like the effect.

I also loved the t shirt immediately.  Wore for dinner the same day.  And also wore it work.  And then proceeded to dye some more.  The next one was confiscated by a daughter.  That's a compliment, I'm sure.  Then I gave her a few old t's to take on a camping trip around the country.   She wants to gather plants where they stop to camp and arrange them onto the fabric and make a bundle which she'll boil when she gets a chance.  Adding rusted nails and old twigs all adds to the final result.  It'll be exciting to see what she comes up with since they are driving around the whole island and she will be picking plants in very different locations.

This is so easy to do and my shabby old t's look really respectable when they have been through this process.  No longer gray and dingily, they look like works of art.  I'm hooked.  I almost threw out some of my old t shirts and now I'm Google-ing "t-shirts in bulk".  I can't get enough of dyeing them.  I run out to the garden and pick whatever takes my fancy and arrange it carefully.  That part is tranquil and serene.  Tying it up is fun, the the marks usually show and make some pattern.  Then I have to wait to see what emerges.  I have one waiting right now.  I dyed that in avocado skins which gives a lovely dusty pink colour.  Then I put leaves on it and boiled it for an two hours or so.  I put some rust water on it and some copper water also (that is poisonous, but I'm careful) to get some effects.  The rust water produces the grays and blacks, the copper water enhances some green colors from leaves.  Both act as mordants, along with the tannins in the tree branch.  But all very unpredictable in combination with the different leads and flowers.

I can't wait any longer.  I'm unrolling the bundle.  It's all excitedly mottled and splotsy (that should be a word even if it isn't) and I'm sure it's the best one yet.

Lichen: Parmelia saxatilis - Obsession nr. 4

Parmelia is the lichen that has most commonly been used here in Iceland to dye.  It gives rather nice yellows and browns and even over to reddish browns.  And it leaves it's wonderful scent in the wool.  As with other lichen, heat will make the colours more brown so dying cold is actually quite smart.  There are three varieties of Parmelia that grow here and all are used to dye wool.  They all look very similiar, but P. omphalodes is slightly more brown in colour than the others. P. sulcata has a wrinkly kind of surface.  I think the one that I collected is P. saxatilis which is known as Shield lichen or Crottle in English.  Crottle was also commonly used in Scotland to dye wool.

I came across this lichen by accident.  Even if it is quite common here, I hadn't quite figured out where to go to look for it.  But my husband and I were taking my mother in law for a drive to see a place where we sometimes take the dogs for a walk.  It's a lovely place, only minutes from the city and there is this river and a few small summer cottages and there is also some lava rock that is covered in moss and also Parmelia saxatilis.  I sat on the rocks and as I touched the rock to steady myself I felt that it wasn't actually a rock, but a lichen.  It looks just like rock.  That is so cool!  I am always so grateful for these little gifts from nature and in that spirit of gratefulness I gathered a little bit.  Just enough to cover my palm really.  Because there wasn't that much of it in that place.  I'm not dyeing large quantities, only about 20-25 grams of wool at a time (there are about 30 g to an oz).  I'm just curious about what colours I can get and I want to document that.

There isn't that much written about lichen dyeing compared to dying with plants, but what there is in Icelandic is about Parmelia.  There isn't usually any difference made between the different Parmelias in dyeing literature, but I'm interested in the subtle differences.  But the problem lies in identifying them correctly.  I may have to look to one of my father collegues for help one day because I just may be wrong about the particular variety.

I did the same with this lichen as I do with all the others.  I first simmer it in water and coloured some wool.  That gave me a mustard kind of yellow.  It's very nice even if I'm not a fan of the curry yellows.  There just simply doesn't seem to be a lichen colour that I don't like.

Then I tried to steep it in ammonia, but that didn't really do anything special.  At least not yet.  It's still sitting there and I'm still shaking it.  This can go on for weeks.  Up to 16 weeks I've read, so patience is needed.  But, I'm not expecting purple from this one.  It would be more of a maroon, or in the best case a burgundy colour.  But we'll just have to wait and see.

I had rather high hopes for this in a soap.  It somehow seems logical that a light yellow liquid will give much less colour than an orange one will.  But...  You'll have to wait for the next post.  There was a bit of a mix up and I couldn't find my notes, so this soap you may have seen before in my Peltigera post.   That was wrong.  This soap, the one that I decorated with Gallium verum, is made with Parmelia water, not Peltigera as I thought.  And it only produced a slight blush of a colour.  And no mustard tone to the soap.  It really amazes me how unrelated the yarn and soap colours are.  I would have thought that there would be more of a correlation between the two.  Because even if I have been using the exhaust baths to colour the soaps, there has been quite a bit of colour left in the water.  But I'm sure I'll have to try the lichen decoctions fresh in soaps one of these days.  For now this is just experimentation for fun.  And I have a lot of soaps that smell of Vetiver and something.  Oh, yes this one does have Orange Essential oil and Vetiver.  At least I got that right.

Lichen: Ochrolechia or Pertusaria - Obsession nr. 3

The lichens that I have already posted about, have been foliose, but now it's time for a crustose lichen.  Those are the ones that are like stains on rocks.  This type is quite abundant on rocks in the wood where I walk the dogs.

I am not sure if it's an Ochrolechia or a Pertusaria.  It is probably either lactea or corallina.  The former is a creamy or gray colour and has a pimply surface and can grow to about 15 cm, the latter is very white and without the bumps and gets even bigger, to 20 cm.  I'm not the only one who is confused, P. lactea is sometimes also called Ochrolechia lactea, so if biologists are confused...

But anyway I'm pretty sure that both O. (or P.) lactea and O. (or P.) corallina both grow on the rocks because there definitely are lichens that are more white and others that are more gray or cream.  I collected tiny amounts of the cream or gray ones and still have the white ones to explore.  Oh, there is so much to do and so little time!  But, on the bright side, I have something to look forward to.

It is pretty amazing that a colourless body of a crusty something can produce colour, but it can.  This lichen gave me the most beautiful sunny yellow on wool when simmered.  I first dyed a small amount of Icelandic wool and as it is very white I got this beautiful yellow.  The Alpaca wool that I'm using for the lichen dyes now are much darker in colour, so that the colours are more muted.

After I had used the lichen to dye in water I put the same lichen into an ammonia solution and it turned a kind of red colour with a hint of brown to it.  I shook the jar every day faithfully for over 3 months, sometimes thinking it was on the verge of turning purple, but I gave up in the end and dyed with it.

It is a lovely earthy pink.  I also dyed another skein in the exhaust bath, which gave a lighter shade.  I was very happy with that and expected great things from it in a soap.  But of course you never get what you expect in this natural colour business.

In preparation for the glorious pink I expected I scented the soap with Geranium as well as the Vetiver and put some hibiscus on top.  But the colour never showed up.  Just a slight blush of a tint in spite of the strongly coloured water.

It is so amazing to me that it is possible to get two such different colours from the same material.  How can one not be fascinated by these unpredictable things?

Lichen: Melanelia exasperata - Obsession nr. 2

I noticed that there was a lichen growing on one of the birch trees in my garden.  It wasn't pretty or anything, I actually thought it was slightly revolting.  But it was a lichen and there was plenty of it. And it was on my tree.  So I took some.  It had a green colour that was quite tempting.

I first boiled it in water to see what colour that gave to Icelandic wool.  It produced an off white colour.  Not the most exciting, but quite useful in many colour combinations.  I gave it to my daughter for a blanket that she is crocheting.

Next I put the Melanelia in Ammonia solution and I let it sit for a few weeks.  This is quite common to do with lichens because some of them will produce remarkable colours if they are steeped in this stinking solution for a few weeks.   And shaken every day.  In the olden days they used stale urine, most often from cows.  I have it on good authority from an Icelandic dyer that running after cows with a bucket to collect urine is a rather uncertain endeavour.  And as much as I love the methods of old, I decided to skip this one.  And peeing on it myself just seemed too self sufficient, somehow.

Anyway the ammonia solution is generally 1/3 ammonia, 2/3 water and it's better to have a good lid on this.  The smell is horrid.  I really knew that it wouldn't produce any exciting results because I have basically read which lichens are the primary dye lichens and Melanelia hasn't been mentioned.  But the thing is, there are a few thousand of these lichens and not all of them grow everywhere and maybe no one tried this with Melanelia.  So I had to try it for myself.

When it was apparent that nothing exciting (that means reds, pinks or purples in my mind) would come from the Melanelia I used it to dye a small skein of Alpaca wool.  The colour was slightly olive green.  Not as green as I expected because the water from it was a fairly distinct  green in a muddy brownish sort of way.  But I read somewhere that the colour of the dye water is not a good indication of the colour that a lichen produces.  These guys are just full of surprises.  But this is the greenest colour that I have had from lichen.

The Melanelia soap I did was exactly the same recipe as the other lichen soaps.  I only varied the water and the scent.  For this soap, which I hoped would be some sexy green colour I chose Ylang Ylang with the Vetiver.  I didn't get a sexy green, nor the rather muddy sort of greenish brown that I more realistically expected.  In fact the soap hardly took any colour at all.

I put some Birchbark with Melanelia on top to make it a bit more interesting, but maybe it's just a bit creapy.  But the scent is lovely, earthy and seductive.  I might use that again.

But the conclusion is that Melanelia exasperata (I'm pretty sure it is exasperata, but I willing to be corrected if a lichen expert should see this) is worthless as a colouring agent in soap.  It will produce an olive tint to wool in roughly equal quantity of lichen to wool.  The exhaust bath will be a light beige.  No reds or purples lurking in this lichen and it doesn't give much scent to the yarn, although the decoction smells nicely of lichen.  But it was a nice experiment and now I can leave it alone on my tree.

Lichen: Peltigera canina - Obsession nr. 1

Lichens have totally taken over my life for the moment.  They are so weird and different that it's hard not to be fascinated by them.  There isn't that much information around about lichen dyes and what little there is is often without latin names and that makes everything difficult.  I use latin names a lot although I realize that some people think that is very snobbish.  It isn't.  It's the only way to talk about specific plants without causing confusion.  I read about plants and dyeing in many languages and common names are very different from country to country and they tend to be quite arbitrary so that translating them is no help at all.

Lichens are totally different from other organisms and not much is understood about how they work. They may look like they are a single organism, but in fact they are two or more partners that form a symbiotic relationship. One of the partners is a fungus (mycobiont, for those who are interested) which makes the vegetative body of the lichen which houses the other partner, the photosynthetic (photobiont) one. The photosynthetic partner (there can be more than one) is usually green algae or cyanobacteria (cyano is from the greek kyanos=bluegreen) and it's funtion is to produce energy for itself and the fungal partner.  Cyanobacteria is quite well known to most soapers: Arthrospira platensis and A. maxima are the latin names of Spirulina which can be used to make green soaps.

There are about 13,500 species of lichen on the planet, but only 750 are found in Iceland.  Lichens are basically of 3 types:

1. Foliose - which means that they are leaf like in their structure.
2. Crustose - those are like a crust stuck to a surface and are usually very thin and tightly attached. These are about 75% of all lichens.
3. Fruticose - these are branched structures.

One of the problems with lichens is that they can be very hard to identify, but at least it's fairly easy to classify them by the above and work from there.

Since lichens grow very, very slowly I am careful to harvest only common lichen that I find growing abundantly.  I have a rule of never taking more than 1% of any plant material that I collect and therefore I have no fear of collecting too aggressively.

I have known about lichens forever, as my parents taught us well and especially about the more unusual plants like lichen and moss, my fathers specialty.  But I wasn't all that interested in them although I remember noticing how many different species of moss and lichen can grow on one tree trunk in one of the last trips I took with my parents about a year before my father died.  He pointed it out to me and showed me how different things grew on different sides of the tree trunks as well as at different heights and on different tree species.

Peltigera canina isn't a particularly good dye plant.  So why did I write a post about it?  Well, about a year ago when I noticed this lichen growing on a rock in the woods on my evening walk with the dogs.  Something about it fascinated me, and I was hooked from then on.  I collected a little piece and took it home.  I was quick to identify it as the very common Peltigera canina.  It has been used as a medicinal plant to treat treat wounds, urinary disorders, thrush, tuberculosis, and rabies. I later found it growing simply everywhere in the woods and in many other places.  It is amazing how a whole new world opens up when we discover something new.  And what a wonderful world it is.

It will give a light yellow colour to wool and silk.  There are lichen that will give reds and purples, so yellow isn't all that special, but I love it anyway.  It's soft and natural and it goes well with many other colours.

I have been using Icelandic wool (Lopi) to dye, but for the lichens I decided to use alpaca wool.  It's so wonderfully soft that it's obscene.  I need something soft and warm for this winter.