natural dyeing part one.

 

weighing out the alum

cotton dyed in cutch

i've been itching to try natural dyeing since getting rebecca burgess' book 'harvesting color' as part of a christmas gift from chris (and recommended by erin considine, thanks erin!) - i finally got my chance last week after hoarding enough fabric and yarn to finally justify one big enough go at it.  i'm pretty pleased with the results.

the primaries, clockwise: indigo, madder, indigo, indigo, alkanet, cutch

clockwise: madder + cutch, indigo + madder, alkanet + cutch

all indigo + cutch, top and right cutch overdyed with indigo

left: madder + alkanet, right: madder + cutch

cutch + indigo

alkanet + indigo

i used madder, cutch, alkanet, sandalwood and indigo.  the prep process which covers the pre-washing of the yarns and fabrics and mordanting can be pretty time intensive - i learned my lesson to do these well in advance for next time.  

laying out to dry

i combined multiple colors on a few skeins of yarn and some cuts of fabric, my favorite combination thus far is a pale madder combined with a light indigo - it makes a complex mauve/purple/grey shade with variations in both shade and color in the final result:

madder + indigo

i'll have more photos of how the fabric turned out in part two, i ended up with way more photos than i thought i would!  i'll get the post up later this week, stay tuned.