A Rainbow of Threads: Natural Dyed Yarns - Part 3 - Yellow

~ Bui - an chéad dath i nGaeilge a d’fhoghlaim mé

Yellow is the most dead easy color to dye using natural materials.  There are so many plants to chose from, whether you need to dye cloth or yarn or make a pigment lake.     But some are better than others and almost all need a mordant, usually alum.

The exceptions are the lichen dyes.  Yep, we're back to lichen.  Part of the Book of Kells project is trying to reproduce a pale lavender ink extracted from lichen. Alas, unless I have a chance to visit the coast between now and when the project is due, I will have the settle for the purple and lavender lakes I've made from other plants.  But that's another post. The point is, in my quest to extract purple pigment from lichen, I had a chance to experiment with other abundant lichen, one of which can dye yellow, Usnea.
. 

This is a very environmentally fragile lichen, so again, do not gather unless there is an abundance and use only what falls on the ground.  All of mine came from fallen branches.  This lichen in particular you will only find in abundance in places with low air pollution.  So now I know certain places by parks streams have very clean air. 

I used the same method of dye extraction as I did with "crottle"...soaking in a jar of water and ammonia, shaking daily...but the results aren't as dramatic.  After a couple weeks I had a yellowish orange beige liquid.   But unlike the crottle which appears to keep its color forever, it looked as if it was going to fade.  So to save the dye and preserve it, I boiled it, strained the faded lichens out, and reduced it down to a dark yellow paste.  Then mixed it with a couple drops of grain alcohol to preserve it and  stored it in a small jar.

So when I wanted to dye a strand of yard yellow, I thought it was perfect.  But I forgot how little I had.  Maybe a large tablespoon.  Fortunately there is a long tradition of using lichen dyes to enhance vegetable dyes and vis-a-versa.  I decided to make a mixed dye bath of mullein leaves and flowers, with a pinch of alum and the lichen paste.   Having dyed with mullein before, I knew it yielded a medium pastel yellow.  I usually don't like pastels.  But in the case of yellow I prefer it. 

After bringing everything to a boil and simmering for a half hour or so, I let it sit and cool.  I was quite pleased with the results, a medium rich brassy yellow.  I suspect that is the lichen influence.  Compare with wool just dyed with mullein. 

[image to come]


Two strands of yarn were used because one will be dyed green in an exhausted woad vat. But that's yet to come....

yarn dyed yellow with Mullien and Usnea, with "crottle" brown yarn

Next:  Red

Making Lake Pigment

 I came across lakes while trying to find a way to make natural red pigment.   I'd already dyed with madder in the past, but simply powering the root doesn't work.  I wasn't even sure if madder would be the best choice.  Then I discovered Madder Lake.

It has no coverage, that is, it can't be used by itself to just cover up a color, but it is red, it is natural and it does work. 

Laking can be done with almost any plant  that has enough strong coloration to make pigment.   In the simplest terms, a "lake" is using a chemical reaction with alum and some base, lye, chalk or soda ash, to bind the colorants in a stable form.  Most lakes are made by soaking or boiling the plant material until a dark pigment saturated liquid is made.

 

Then one dilutes alum with a small amount of water and adds it to the pigment.  Often, though not always,  there is a color shift, usually to a richer more saturated hue.  But sometimes the liquid is just too dark to tell.  To this alum mixture is then added a diluted base.  Sometimes, like with chalk, there is a vigorous reaction. But usually there is just an interesting, but not messy, swirling of the contents as the alum and base bind together.   

Proportions are important: too much of one or the other and the color is weak or pastel.  Or their is a lot of whitish debris that increases washing time.  Generally more alum is used than the base, but exact proportions vary on the kind of base.

Once the reaction is complete, the liquid will be filled with a colloidal solid.  This will take a while to settle, often hours, if not a couple fo days depending on the pigments involved.  After it settles, it's washed, that is the liquid is poured off consecutively until the water is clear and the settled solid can be strained and dried.   One can also save the first pour off to make another, paler, lake.   

This opens up a wealth of natural pigment possibilities.   But their are caveats.  Many plant based pigments are not colorfast.  There are exceptions: madder, weld, woad. Really anything that has a reputation as a colorfast dye will probably make a colorfast lake.  The color will be different: madder is pleasantly true red but woad becomes a dark teal.   The advantages of lakes, once they are dry, is they can be stored indefinitely, though one probably should keep them out of direct light.  When one was ready, they were ground and mixed with water and gum arabic to make a water color, or ground into oil for oil paint.

 

So this was exciting.  I could, in theory make pigment out of anything.  But I discovered this is February, when few plants are available.   Then I remembered the dye baths I'd saved.

There was a lot of mullein  and a medium jar of madder.  They were stored in a cold place in the garage and hadn't fallen prey to mold.  So I experimented.  It turned out to be the best thing, experiment with old dye baths.   Mistakes could be made that would have made me very sad with fresh, high quality madder roots.  Like when it when pink, for instance:

According to these forums pink madder is the worst.  I'm not a fan of pink, so I tend to agree.  The whole point of madder is making red.  But pink is a useful pigment  to have on hand, so lemons, lemonade, etc.

My drive was an inspiration for a Book of Kells project where I'd use just natural pigments.  Learning to lake pigments made that idea possible.