Dying Fiber
One of the things that I have enjoyed doing for many years now is producing yarn by spinning cotton, Angora, and wool. I find it just amazing to see how the texture of these individual textiles change when you combine them together.
One year I grew an heirloom green cotton plant called Erlene’s Green. I found that in its natural state is spun up into a beautiful pistachio colored yarn. When I took that yarn and added it to a boiling pot of water with some baking soda (this is called a mordant) it became a deep and pine colored green.
Altering color is done with mordants and by adding ‘dye stuffs,’ things like plant material to boiling water and then soaking fiber. And sometimes mordanting the fiber and then dying is done too! Needless to say coloring fiber can be as complicated as you want to make it.
In a future post I will talk a little more about the job of the dyer. I like this video by John Townhend as he experiments with black walnut hulls. Enjoy!
2 thoughts on “Dying Fiber”
That is some beautiful yarn, Sadie May!
Are you able to make socks from this yarn? That would be an interesting project! I am sure you could. 😉
Thank you, Cindy. One of the things that I have found is that this yarn does not make the best socks due to the fact that it is less durable. With all the walking pressure on the sole of the sock it wears out very quickly. I have found this to be true of many of the cotton yarns that I have tried, homespun and store bought. Though one could make socks with the yarn, there are others better suited for that use. Thank you for your compliments. I was amazed with the deep green color that is so natural in this fiber.