Solar dyeing test run

When running the stove in the heat of the summer seems a bit goofy I decided, as a test, to set up 6 jars with 50 grams each of dye-stuff I harvested last year. (madder frozen old dyebath, nettle flowers, onion skin, black walnut husks, crushed, goldenrod flowers, late season and birch bark) , 

Then added water up to the top, gave them a stir and set them in the sun for a few days. Inside, I made up a dish of alum-water for mordant, 2 tbs bulk barn alum to added water and added 6, 10 gram skeins of Belgian linen, 6 strips of silk and a 6 meters or so of cotton and wool each divided into 6 lengths.

I mordented the fibers inside 'cold' for two days and then added the fibers to the jars with the plant matter still in the dyebath on day 3.

The birch was looking really weak so ran that on the stove for and hour at a boil to get some more colour out of the bark and then all of them went outside again. The only one that smelled bad at this point was the nettles, kinda awful, but dyers were not known to smell like roses!

I soaked the fibers in the jars in the sun for 4 days, then strained out the fibers and the dyestuffs and dried the fibers. 

 The nettles were SOOO rotten and the colour so 'meh' that I didn't save that dyebath, but the rest smell more or less like they started, so not too bad. The goldenrod still smells like heaven even after 7 days in the sun! 

ready to strain

birch bark

goldenrod flowers, late season, 2011, dried

onion skins

nettle flowers, dried, 2011

walnut husks dried and crushed, 2011

Walnut on linen,cotton, wool, silk. Madder on same, Onion, Goldenrod, Nettle, Birch

I will be adding more fiber into the dyebaths in a few days once it's mrodented, and leaving it longer ( 2 weeks maybe?) to see how they dye/ how much colour is left in them.