Hemp

In March and April I was asked to dye some hemp for Beatriz Constán. neither of us had used the material before and once we'd dyed it both of us were hooked.

It's a beautiful soft fibre which becomes softer and shinier as you handle it.

Being a cellulose I washed it, soaked it in tannin and then in alum before dyeing.

Below are photos of the results.

Left to right: dry hemp as we bought it, washed, soaked in tannin, soaked in alum.
Izquierda a derecha: seco, lavado, con tanino, con alumbre.

Top row: natural, 2 logwood samples, cochineal and logwood.
Front: Cochineal and madder
Arriba: natural, 2 ejemplos con palo de campecha, cochinilla
abajo: cochinilla y rubia

Eucalyptus and logwood (palo de campecha)

Cochineal, and overdyed on logwood and pomegranate.
Cochinilla, y teñido encima de palo de campecha y granada.

Camomile. On the right is how it looks when it comes out of the dye bath and then as you pull it and almost comb it the fibre becomes softer and silkier again.

The full range of colours. Toda la gama de colores al final.

Madder Again

Well it's just over a year later and once again I'm experimenting with madder.

I still haven't harvested my own plant. It's growing in a pot so I think we'll just leave it for another year or two, hopefully we might manage to plant it out. As you can see from the photo it's spreading.

We've also got lots of little plants coming along nicely.

So the madder I've been using has been bought.

During the winter I've been using both madder powder and madder roots on my woollen scarves. I love these results and they're a beautiful terracotta colour. As they're for sale I've mordanted them all with alum.

Last week I finally got down to some serious controlled experiments.
Using two of Jenny Dean's books I used two different methods.

Method 1 consisted in washing off the yellow and brown pigments (and putting this liquid aside) and then gently heating the dye with the wool and then just leaving it on the roof in the very hot sun.
I added alum mordanted wool and  unmordanted wool.

I kept using the dye bath and also experimented with modifiers: iron, alkali (wahing soda) and acid (vinegar).

From the left, number 3,5 and 6 are from the rinse dyebath 

I did the same with the dye liquid from the two rinses.










Method 2 was Jenny Dean's alkali extraction method. This has given quite a range of colours and 10 days later I'm still using it. It's now producing some very beautiful dark browns.

I didn't quite manage to get a real red but I did a second round of Method 1 experiments, increasing the quantity of madder and using rainwater and this gave a very beautiful deep colour. (The four centre skeins are from this dyebath - the two browner skeins have been in an iron modifier.)

I'm tantalisingly close to getting a purple. two small pieces of re-used wool tied onto the skeins have taken on a soft purple hue. Nearly there.









Some of the browns I got using iron and pomegranate.

Overall I'm amazed by how many colours and shades I achieved with just one dyestuff.
On this round of experimenting I reckon the standard method, using rainwater and rinsing off the pigments at the beginning, was the best.
The alkali method I think I would keep for the rich browns at the end. maybe it would be possible to just add soda ash to the end of the other dye bath and leave it for days on end to achieve the same results?

As always  experimenting like this just leads to more experimenting '' Now what if I do .......?''
It's endless.