Hunter-Gatherer

I suppose that is what I have become now that the natural dye bug has set in.  Today I took the camera with me as I was visiting with the horse and totally neglected to take a single picture.  But, I did manage to come home with a bounty of lichens and fungi for dying.  

Walmart bag half full of lichens and spider stow away.

Mystery fungi.  Anyone know if it will give dye?  There are plenty more small ones growing where I found these.

  

Pretty sure this is a lichen of some sort.  Found it on the base of a rotting log.

And what is this?  Well, I'm working on a free pattern for a new lace yarn.  Let me tell you this is one yummy little number!  More details coming soon!

Natural Dying #3

Yep, you guessed it, I am doing yet another natural dye on the blog.  I just can't help that the natural dye bug has sucked me in and in a big way!

Today I finished up my third go round with natural dyes using lichens I gathered from around my horse's paddock.  And here is how I did it......

I reused the mordant from Tuesday's go at carrot tops, by adding 10 more grams of alum and close to 250 grams of yarn.  The yarns used here are:  100 grams of heavy lace wool, approximately 75 grams of superwash merino and the rest was a superwash merino, bamboo blend.  This time about 1/2 way through the 2 hour mordant, I dropped in a couple of glugs of iron to the mordant.

Picture of the dry lichens I am using.  These were all collected from fallen branches.

Crammed my little nylon bag full to the brim with lichens.

Yarn moved from mordant to dye pot.  Lichens are under the yarn in the mesh bag which was periodically moved around.

And here is the resulting yarns!  From front to back, Lace Merino, Superwash Merino & Bamboo, & Superwash Merino.  I am in LOVE with how these colors turned out.

Another shot of the same.  Don't you just love the rich earthy browns!  I have to admit, I am supper impressed with how well the dye did on the Superwash Merino & Bamboo yarns.  Maybe next time, I will try an all bamboo yarn to see how it fairs.

I think I was suppose to keep the dye pot going until the lichens disappeared, but after 24 hours, I was happy to only have a couple of small handfuls of lichen left.  Saving these for another little dye experiment for a later date:)

All dye experiments to date.  From the bottom....  Lichen, Carrot Tops, & Black Bean.  Out of all the 3 the black beans were the only ones I found disappointing.  They have since started to fade which is faintly visible in the photos.

I have had quite a fun little time with the natural dyes, but this weekend is of course the big Labor Day Holiday.  Thinking it might be a good idea to lay off the dye pots for at least a few days:)

I hope everyone has a happy and safe week end!