Natural dyeing is unpredictable
Sep. 11th, 2011 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoAt least, sometimes. You can get results that seem to have nothing to do with what the recipe or book instructions tell you to expect.
We have a lot of elderberries this year, which is unusual. Normally it gets too dry during August and the berries mummify. Not this time. Yesterday I went out and gathered about a pound of them for a dyeing experiment. My books say that elderberries produce a lavender blue color when used with an alum mordant and simmered for a long time. So I mordanted about 2.5 ounces of Wensleydale yarn with alum and cream of tartar, cooked up my berries with vinegar and water, and tried dyeing the yarn.
Above you see the dyepot filled with strained off elderberry solution and my yarn. I simmered this for about 90 minutes, then covered it and let it stand until completely cool. This morning I rinsed out the yarn and put it out to dry.
And there are the results. The color is pleasant enough, something like a warm rose tan. Not a hint of blue or purple, though. The berries may be affected by the fact that our soil is quite alkaline. Many blue-purple colored flowers and berries lose their blue in alkaline soil and intensify it in acid soil. Blueberries show similar effects, and ours are much more red in color though they taste the same as the true blue berries from elsewhere.
We have a lot of elderberries this year, which is unusual. Normally it gets too dry during August and the berries mummify. Not this time. Yesterday I went out and gathered about a pound of them for a dyeing experiment. My books say that elderberries produce a lavender blue color when used with an alum mordant and simmered for a long time. So I mordanted about 2.5 ounces of Wensleydale yarn with alum and cream of tartar, cooked up my berries with vinegar and water, and tried dyeing the yarn.
Above you see the dyepot filled with strained off elderberry solution and my yarn. I simmered this for about 90 minutes, then covered it and let it stand until completely cool. This morning I rinsed out the yarn and put it out to dry.
And there are the results. The color is pleasant enough, something like a warm rose tan. Not a hint of blue or purple, though. The berries may be affected by the fact that our soil is quite alkaline. Many blue-purple colored flowers and berries lose their blue in alkaline soil and intensify it in acid soil. Blueberries show similar effects, and ours are much more red in color though they taste the same as the true blue berries from elsewhere.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 02:49 pm (UTC)Many of the "tried and true" formulas that were recorded in the 18th and 19th century have turned out to be very difficult to reproduce. Bright scarlet red from madder root, for instance, was considered a given result yet today we can't do it. All shades of orange and brown, but the famous "Turkey red" of 18th century calico prints was created with madder. Synthetic alizarin had not yet been created, and the other true reds from cochineal or lac are insect derived and very costly.
Dyers' guilds kept their formulas carefully guarded, of course, because good ones were worth a fortune. I suspect that written directions often omitted small but crucial steps or details. This may have been intentional, or may have been a result of elements such as temperature or minerals in the water used, of which the writer was simply unaware.
Navajo weavers used to get a bright green from certain plants, and European-Americans failed to duplicate it until they realized that the buckets the Navajo used to prepare their dye solutions had copper and tin in them in much higher proportions than later manufactured buckets or pans would. (And in fact most modern dyers use enameled or porcelain clad vessels to avoid such contamination.)