ckmason

The skeins I left dyeing in jars while I was out of town have had 4 days to soak, and there have been color changes, so I am undecided about whether to uncork them now or let them deepen even more. In general I am very excited about them though.

Pomegranate rind--hard to say if this is yellow is deepening much from the original overnight bath. And all I have for comparison is the picture I took of the pom and chesnut mordanted skeins then. Was a lemony yellow, possibly a hue shift to buttery?

Red dragonfruit--this started a very intense magenta and has darkened toward purple. I really hope it's light/washfast, it's a very pretty color.

Dragonfruit rind--this looked sort of hot pink to start, like a dilute version of the red dragonfruit. Now it's shifted to yellow. Will be interesting to compare to the pomegranate rind yellow.

Blackberry--this bath looked the closest to true red of all the reddish roseish magentaish dye liquors I started with. It's now shifted to violet, much more what I expected from blackberry.

Prickly pear--a rosy pink, but it looks much lighter on the yarn, I thought it would have saturated more. I doublechecked the navajo dye book; prickly pear is one that is definitely supposed to be cold-dyed like this, boiling will kill the red color (but so will tin or alum, hmmm, possibly I should not have alum mordanted the skeins? I default did it to all of them, as tannin-alum mordanting is go-to for cellulose fibers). The book says it's supposed to be fermented for a week, so maybe if I left it longer it would get deeper; but also I don't know how literally ferment is meant (it is often used in the sense of "let sit for a period of time," rather than the actual formation of alcohol, in dye books). Is this supposed to have a chemical/microorganism reaction though, is being sealed in jars with very little air counterproductive to the dyeing? The book also says you're supposed to stir it an rub the dye into the yarn frequently during the week of soak, and I haven't been doing that either.

I also ran half the jars with the skeins from last time, that got extra mordant from the metal canning jar holder ring, causing them to go grey-green. Cabbage is apparently not light fast, so those skeins dulled to kind of a khaki color I suspect was basically tannin-alum-whatever-the-heck-the-ring-is mordant color. Unsurprisingly, all those skeins look duller and greyer in their jars. I'm not sure I will ever have any intentional use for that ring-mordant effect. Might be iron? Because "sad" is definitely a feel I get off them. They have saddened.

So, red cabbage (which is supposed to give dark blue purple in base and pink in acid) is giving me a whole heck of a lot of khaki-green. (Image, left to right, base increased, acid increased, tap water no additives). This is you know, weird?

Best guess, there's a metal basket that came with my giant enameled pot for lifting mason jars in and out, and I was using it to pull fiber in and out of the dyepot too, without thinking about the fact that metals will have mordanting and frequently hue-changing effects, and you don't have to use the metal salts powders, you can make your own by putting a metal object in water and usually a bit of vinegar, but I'm guessing that the acidity of the alum bath I was mordanting with had a similar effect in leeching material out of the metal basket. possibly also heat related? the bottom of the basket had some black marks where it would have been in direct contact with the pot on the burner.

There was enough random bits of cabbage left on my equipment that my wash water turned dark blue when I cleaned up today; when I poured it into the big pot that the metal basket fits in, it seemed to turn greener. I am taking this as further evidence it's the metal basket. And wondering how to wash the big pot well enough to keep residue from affecting future dye batches.

I want to try again but I also want to get something besides khaki already so I don't want to do cabbage again next. I'm thinking blackberries. They're supposed to give a purple. Maybe I could do a small batch and use the small pot exclusively to avoid the metal basket residue.

I want to play with using pomegranate skins for tannin, I know tannin mordanting always adds a brown/grey cast to the yarn but I'm wondering if it might be less pronounced with something other than chestnut tannin, which is what I'm currently using. Also I'm considering getting a dwarf pomegranate tree to grow on the balcony and be a source of mordant (and also fruit?) if I like the results I get from pomegranate mordanting with ones I get from the store. I should probably do a comparison test--one lot mordanted with the chestnut, one lot mordanted with pomegranate. I should reread my dye books on how much organic material you need to get a sufficient amount of tannin out of.