A Rainbow of Threads: Natural Dyed Yarns - Part 1 Black

~dathanna faoi Bogh Baistí le dath nádúrtha

I am working on a craft project that involves weaving yarn. It's for a meditation practice, so I won't be elaborating further.  However, I was inspired to color the yarn with natural dyes and thought I'd archive the process.

There are several threads, all a pale oatmeal natural colored hand spun wool I traded with another artist.  So for colors that are not black or some shade of brown, it was necessary for me to bleach them, and conviently, it was time to touch up my own bleached/blue dyed hair.  Since I don't do it all over anymore, there was plenty to use on a few strands of yarn.

(Note: when you can't get white wool yarn, and must bleach light beige, sheeps hair is more resistant than human hair to Clairol.  I definitely would not do this for a large piece of fabric or garment.  Start properly with white wool.)

Using boxed bleach worked well enough, though it didn't get the strands pure white, more a lightened/blued ash blond(which the package was).  But light enough for my purposes.  The yellows and blues will be yellow and blue, not muddy goldenrod and dark teal.  Never have been a massive fan of teal.   

Once I separated the lightest of the bleached yarns to be "white"(ish), I was ready to start.


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Black - dubh

Thanks to the ongoing Book of Kells Project, I've acquired a modest competence in making "gall" ink.  I put "gall" in quotes because, we don't have gall wasps locally (at least I haven't seen them on the trees I visit and I visit MANY trees) and I think buying galls online is cheating, so I work with what I have plenty of: acorns.  Can I call it acorn gall ink? 

The principle and result is the same.   Once must however use at least twice as much or more acorns.  Okay the exact amount is whatever it takes to make the ink black.  Not dark charcoal, not dark sepia brown(though it often is in the real manuscript), but black.  

Briefly, this involves leaching tannins from crushed acorns by letting them sit in water for about a week.  At the same time, iron is steeping in vinegar to be mixed later.   This can take a couple days, longer is better.(BoK post making acorn ink).  Because the amount of tannins in acorns are so much less concentrated than galls, one has to boil the water down until it's a thick dark brown liquid before mixing in the iron salts mixture.  But to dye one thread of yarn none of that is necessary.  All that's needed is for the yarn to be thoroughly soaked in the liquids in succession.
  Acorns were crushed with a hammer, then put in water to soak for a week.  Try to use a container with a lid and keep it on or squirrels will fish out your acorns and make a mess...even if they're half moldy from last winter!  Don't worry about small amounts of mold; they won't effect results.  Let the acorns sit a week to extract the tannin.  There's no harm in letting them sit longer, though in the summer mold can develop.  If it got too much just strain it.  If it really bothers you, strain and bring to boil, then cool.  No need to boil down to a slurry like one does for ink.   Then I poured off a cup and a half, just enough to soak the yarn.

The yarn to be dyed was  wetted in water, thoroughly soaked so all the dye substances penetrate it.  This is true for all dying.  First i gently squeezed the extra water out, then put it in the bowl of acorn tannin and let it sit a while, maybe 5 minutes.  Remember this is a very small fabric piece..each yarn strand might be five feet.  

Once it was thoroughly soaked, I gently poured maybe a half cup of the iron vinegar onto it.  The results are instant and dramatic: the water turned inky black.  I poked the yarn down with my finger tips, making sure it was well mixed in the black ink.

NOTE: People with sensitive skin ...or who don't want black fingertips for the day...should use  latex or rubber gloves.  I don't have sensitive skin and so am a bit blase except with the strongest chemicals.

After leaving the yarn in for a few minutes, I took it out, and gently squeezed the excess.  DO NOT WRING IT OUT OR RINSE.  Leaving it dry first will make it more color fast, though iron and oak tannin is pretty damn color fast.   It was a hot day so I draped the yarn on a bush and it dried in less than a half hour if that.  Not every color should be exposed to sunlight so soon after dyeing, but were talking about oak tannin, so....

Agus sin e!   One black piece of yarn.  Not as dark as I wanted, but good enough for the project.  

Next:  Part 2 - Brown