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.

walnuts

Walnuts make everything brown, sidewalks, you, your gloves, your kitchen, your floor, your hair, walnuts do not care. They will substantively dye just about anything you put in their path that is permeable.

That said, they make a very nice warm chocolate brown on wool with out much fuss or muss and there is the added bonus of having some tasty food as a side benefit... brownies with walnuts any one?

There are three really good ways I have read to deal with separating the husks from the nuts.

1. Find a walnut tree on a gravel road, passing cars will run over the nuts squishing off the hulls and leaving the nuts intact.
2. Take a 1x4 board and drill out a walnut sized hole. Center the nut and hit it though the hole with a hammer, ideally, dropping the nut into a bucket and leaving the husk behind for your dyeing adventures.
3. Find shoes you don't care about being stained and a piece of concrete or asfault that will also get stained. Lay the nuts on the ground and roll your foot across them, one at a time, till the husk separates fron the nut.

You have now, hopefully, been adequately warned that these things STAIN!  Yes? and you will listen and beware, and wear gloves from the moment you pick them up off the ground! Okay?  Now to take advantage of that wonderful staining feature.

• de-husk walnuts  

• weight up 400g of husks and chop up roughly
• soak covered in water for 4 hours

• mordent 45 g wool 10 g cotton in 25% alum to fiber weight, on low
• wring out wool and cotton and submerge and simmer for 1 hour in enameled pot

• wring out the next morning

• hang to dry for a day 
• wash till water runs clear

Cotton, wool dyed with walnut husks