Friday, December 4, 2015

Natural Dyeing Binge!

Wild Rose Farm - Camomile, Black Walnut, & Cochineal
Finally, some pictures of the Wild Rose Farm natural dyeing extravaganza! We last left off on the raiding rodent and the black walnut dyebath. The walnut does not require a mordant to bond to the yarn, so the dark brown skeins above are out of black walnut on a superwash yarn. After the natural dyeing workshop a year ago at The Mannings, I decided to try some superwash merino yarn and add to the color range. They take up the dye differently and the results are wonderful. The lighter khaki colored skeins are chamomile and they did require a mordant, so I transitioned to the other natural dyes - adjective dyes, they're called - for those keeping score!  :~0  The saturated magenta, raspberry, & pink from cochineal turned out great. Plus, I finally remembered to mordant & dye the collection of felted hearts I had languishing in a bag. They were part of a needle felting demo using our combed top ... next step, embellishment?
Wild Rose Farm - Logwood Colors
We moved on to a logwood dyebath and then did some over-dyeing in the cochineal "exhaust" dye bath and got some lovely purple & lavender on the superwash yarn. The single violet skein is a homegrown WRF Rambouillet wool worsted weight skein. Different wools, different tricks & formulas, so the variety is endless! 
Wild Rose Farm - Walnut Dyed Curly Locks!
Meanwhile, we soaked more black walnuts to make another dyebath to dye our wool locks for crafting & beards. We'll keep some of the walnut & logwood concentrate for "painting" yarns this winter.
Next up - Wild Rose Farm will be set up at Old Economy Village in Ambridge, PA on Saturday 12/12 & Sunday 12/13 for 2015 Christmas At The Village along with other unique vendors. See you there?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aside from the event that you wrote about in this entry, where can I get my hands on some of those skeins? :)

RMK said...

If you are in the Western PA/Pittsburgh area we can arrange something so you can see them. I don't have another show planned until the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest in May and that means all winter for you without yarn!
Shoot me an email at wildrosefarm AT earthlink DOT net.