August Dye Adventures

Aug 26, 2011 by birdsong

It has been a busy month! I am happy to report that first CSA shipment was sent out last week, featuring Rebecca Burgess’ book, Harvesting Color, and an assortment of summer gathering efforts: lodgepole pine bark, comfrey roots, fennel and Letharia vulpina(that chrome-yellow lichen that festoons the trunks of evergreens here in the high Sierras)

In the midst of the packing and shipping, I was also preparing to give a talk on natural dyes and the fibershed concept at the 13th annual, local music and sustainability festival, called Ridgestock last Saturday. I was able to bring along my ‘posse’ of spinning grrls, Rowen, Stephanie, Luci and Yakshi, and Rowen brought her two children, Moss and Maize, who also know a lot about the fiber world. They spun for the public while I gave my talk, and even taught a handful of children and one adult to successfully take up the spindle!

I also set up a solar dye project for people to view, using one of my solar ovens and a glass jar with iron-water mordanted handspun and lovely summer-yellow flowers – zinnias and African marigolds.

Since I wanted to demonstrate the rusty object-mordant jar, my handspun yarn spent the day in that jar, while the flowers were heating up nicely in theirs… the next day, the yarn went into the dyebath for a few days, resulting in a nicely variegated olive color.

I also created my first eco-print this month, first treating my linen fabric with presoaking and drying alternately in wood ash water and protein/water. This pre-treatment is designed to make the plant dye stick better to the plant fiber… I then bundled rose and black walnut leaves rolled up in the fabric and tied, placed the bundle in the fennel stem mixture that had been steeping in my deep iron kettle for a few weeks out in the sun, and let the fabric bundle steep another five days, until it was time to take it to Ridgestock to unbundle.

All that steeping (fermenting, actually) made for an awful stink! I was afraid to unbundle the bundle, except with my dear friends, who are used to such antics, and waited until my talk was over, and we were back under the trees, so that I could go and quickly bury the plant residues! Even with that, I know there were a few people giving the evil eye to parents carrying young, diaper-clad children… I apologize to those wee ones for being the cause of that blame thrust at them. After unfolding my shirt, rinsing at home in buckets of cold water, then steeping overnight it white vinegar-laced water, the smell was gone, but not the beautiful print!