Madder Dye

 

I've had this jar of dried madder for probably three years now, at least.  It may be longer than that.  I've read that old madder won't dye and I've also read that old madder gives the best reds.   I figured I could sacrifice some of the yarn I have and see what I end up with.

This time, I dyed three wools and two linens.  One of the wools and the natural linen were given an iron mordant and the others were all dunked into the alum mordant.  I wanted to see if it would give me different shades or even different colors.   For the iron, I just used old SOS pads that had rusted.   I keep them in a small bowl after I do the dishes.   

The dye pot once again looks like spaghetti.  I had the water and white vinegar mix at 70°C before I turned the gas off the stove.  I just left the lid on the pot and waited for three hours to see what colors I might get.   

This is just the wools after I rinsed them. They looked very, very Christmas red and Turkey Red!   The linens didn't have much color so I left them overnight.   I'm so glad I did.   I also overdyed the onion skin wool that wasn't as bright as the others.  

From left to right, madder with alum, madder with alum, madder with iron, linen madder with iron, and linen madder with alum.  I need to show a close up of the linens because they are fabulous pinks!!!

This is more true to the color in person.  The natural linen with an iron mordant came out a nice mauve and the bleached linen with an alum mordant came out petal pink!   I'm really happy with the way those came out.

All the yarns I've dyed this week!   There is the two linens with the onion skin dye, one wool with the onion skin dye, the wool I originally dyed with onion skin and then overdyed with madder, plus all the madder yarns!   I'm not in love with the overdye.  It looks more burnt siena in person than the flesh tone it shows here.  However, I think it will go really well with some of the other yarns I have as a secondary color.   

Besides, getting pink on linen really is the best part of all this experiment!

Onion dye!

 I'm going to try and restart this blogging thing.  My first finished crafty thing of the year is dyeing with yellow onion skins!   I've seen some pretty amazing oranges when other people have tried it and figured I'd give it a go myself.  

My local grocery store isn't the best at cleaning the produce stands, which is lucky for me.  I'd go there, buy an onion and fill the plastic bag they had with the one onion and as much of the loose onion skins lying on the table as possible.  After a few weeks of just going in and buying an onion when I needed it for dinner plus a bag of loose onion skins, I had enough to dye with.   

Above are the experimental yarns for dyeing.  The top is natural undyed linen, the second is bleached linen, the middle is a silk and wool blend that I ended up not dyeing, and the last two are wools.  I have no idea where the silk and wool blend ended up.  I went from the dining room to the kitchen and it disappeared.  Likely, I took it with me when I went downstairs to let the pup out and put it down somewhere there.   I'll find it eventually but, because I lost it, it did not get dyed.

I filled my dye pot about half way with water and then threw four bags of onion skins in.   This was the look.  I then turned the stove on and heated the water until it was just steamy, followed by leaving it on low for about an hour.

This was the result after an hour.  I turned the stove off and then put the lid on the pot to leave it for a bit longer. During this time, I put the yarns into a bowl with alum and water to get them ready to dye.   I had washed the yarns earlier to get rid of any oils.  One yarn smelled heavily of sheep after that.  

Two hours after adding the onion skins, I took the skins out of the dye pot.  I just used my basket colander scoop the skins out and throw them away.  I missed a couple of skins but it got most of them out without the need for two different pots.  The dye looked to be a very lovely red when I finished but, really, as you will see, it becomes very, very orange!

The dye pot with the yarn looks like some sort of weird spaghetti.  I let the yarns soak in the pot for about an hour and then heated it back up gently for five minutes (just until there was steam) before leaving them for another half hour.

The final colors!   I will add a picture when they are completely dry (this was just the plastic box to carrier them to a place where they could dry!) but I wanted to show the good oranges I did end up with.   The linen dyed exceptionally well!  It's the wool that is the paler of the yarns.   I don't think I got all the lanolin out of it which might be part of the problem.  Still, not a bad color. 

I did rinse the yarns in cold water before I took the photo.  

The color is a bit more yellow now that it has dried.  In person, it is a very lovely goldenrod color for each of the yarns.  The brightest is the bleached linen - second from the bottom.  The very bottom of the photo is the natural linen.  The top is the wool I'm not sure I got all the lanolin out of which might have affected how well the dye took to it.  

Of these, I'm going to overdye the top and bottom yarns in the photo with madder or another red at some point.  

Cabbage dye and Avocado dye

 

The results of my red cabbage dye experiment last month!

The yarn came out pretty variegated but that was my own fault.  I still like the colors and it's sort of a "sea glass" blue in person.  I might try the cabbage again with a couple of other tricks, such as using baking soda to change up the color.  My Mom *loves* the pale blue of the linen. She wants to paint her room that color!

Sadly, the avocado dye experiment last month didn't work out quite as well.  This was before I even rinsed the yarn fully.  Once it was fully rinsed, both the wool yarn and the linen fabric became....white again.  There really wasn't a drop of color that adhered to it.  

So, this time I decided to try a different method.  Rather than leaving three avocado pits in a jar of vinegar and water to make a dye, I just put 14 avocado pits in a big ole soup pot with a lot of water and simmered it.  

At first, it seemed like it was going the same way as the avocado vinegar experiment until I tested the PH of the water.  For some reason, it was only 5!  I added a lot of baking soda and got the PH at least up to 6.5.   

After simmering the pits for about 3 hours, I added the wool yarn (the same one I used in the previous because, seriously, zero color), and left that to simmer for an hour before I took it off the heat.  I then left the yarn in the dye pot overnight.  Below is what color it is now!

In person, it's a fabulous light mauve that I'm very happy with.  Also, the dye vat smells 100% better than the cabbage vat did.  :-)  I'll post pictures of it when it dries to see fully what color it ends up.  

More Experimenting with dyes

 

Not the best picture but it does show that the linen I dyed in the very blue cabbage water is...blue.  I will do a full write up with video (hopefully!) later but I wanted to share this much.  I'm holding a roll of paper towels above it just for the color focus.  You can easily tell it is not white that way.   

I used leaves of a purple cabbage and boiled it for an hour and a half.  When the leaves were pretty much green from all the purple being leeched out of them, the dye bath was ready.  The linen here has a rust mordant and still came out a rather lovely color.  

I did try to dye with the avocado and ammonia solution but it really didn't work.  I'm going to try boiling the avocado pits next to see if that works at all.  However, that won't be until later in the month.  

Experimenting with dye!

 I've been collecting avacado pits with the help my family, friends, and co-workers.  So far, I have enough for a couple of experiments.  The first of which I started yesterday!

The first experiment is just cut up halves or chunks of avocado pits (did you know they have seams?) in a solution that is 1 part ammonia and 4 parts water.  This picture above is a close up of the first halved avocado pit in the solution.  The jar I'm using I got for maybe $3 at the local thrift store.  It has a nice cork top that keeps out the smell of the ammonia.  

The plan is to keep the jar in the sun (see nice living peace lily next to it!) for the next three days.  I'm hoping it will get a neat reddish color on the wool I have but we'll see.  

I took this photo about a half hour later and you can already see an orange tint to the water.  

This was last night before I went to bed.  The water was very orange!

The next morning it looked like a reddish iced tea!  

I just took this picture and it is very dark.  I'm hoping to use it tomorrow!

For the other 20+ avocado pits I have, I plan on just boiling them.  The entire experiment will involve putting some wool in alum as an mordant, some in iron (thanks, SOS pad!).  I'll then put one alum, at least, in the boiled pits and one in the ammonia solution.  For the iron, it will also be one in the boiled and one in the ammonia. I'm really curious as to what range of color I'll get from these.

I also almost have enough onion skins for some fun dyes and I will boil a red cabbage to get a neat blue or even pink dye.  

New sheer handsewn linen camica

 

The camica laid out on my bed at Pennsic.   It's too sheer to model as it's out of 2.5oz linen I bought from Fabric Store.   

Close up of the neckline.  I used linen thread I would run through beeswax to sew the entire camica.   Each of the edges are rolled or are wrapped in what is essentially linen bias tape.   

Close up of one of the cuffs.  I still need to add twill tape or some sort of fastener to the cuffs.  

Overall, it took me maybe three days, on and off, to sew the camica up while at Pennsic?  This included cutting out the garment and going to classes or walking around.   It really didn't take too terribly long.

The pattern is very simple.  One yard of linen for the front.  One yard of linen for the back.  30" of  the linen, cut in half for the sleeves (so the "top" of the yard is one sleeve and the "bottom" is the other).  5"ish to make squares.  I cut the bottom of the front and back to make binding for the neckline and cuffs.  Overall:  3 yards of fabric used.  

It's very lightweight and perfect for summer.   I'll probably wear it to the North Carolina Renaissance Festival in a few weeks.  :-) 

Late 16th Century Venetian Style Peasant Dress

 

Materials

3 1/2 yards of red linen/cotton blend from Fabric Mart

1/2 yard of cotton duck cloth

1/2 yard of white cotton

1/2 yard of linen rayon blend stripes from Fabric Mart

DMC thread because no one carries red linen and I thought the event originally was a weekend ago

White linen thread from Thimble and Plume

A boot lace

3 ish yards of trim I bought from Lace & Trims on ebay

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Pattern

I used McCalls M7763 for the bodice but with edits. I upped the neckline by at least a good inch. I took two inches off the front shoulder strap and redesigned them to be more narrow at the top. I took some off the upper inside of the front side seam as well.

The skirt is just pleated yardage that I then attached to the bodice. The apron is well, a rectangle with a long, thin strap of material to make the ties.

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First Wearing

I didn't get the chemise I wanted to wear with the outfit done in time.  I ended up just wearing a blouse I found at Goodwill that looked close enough.   

The bodice probably could have been laced a bit tighter but, overall, it was pretty comfy to wear.  I love the length of it and will probably make a couple more dresses from the pattern.

It was also the correct outfit to wear as it was pretty warm in the sun at the event.  Unfortunately, I had to leave early because the pup wasn't used to the heat.  She's fine - she cooled down quickly on the car ride home- but I just didn't want her to get sick.   

Research

It was pretty much based on the same images as I used for my friend's dress a couple of years ago.  This one in particular:

Pietro Ronzelli: Nativita di Maria, Chiesa del Carmine, Bergamo

I just did the inverse colors - primarily because I didn't have a bright red Venetian dress.  Now that I do, I think I'll work on making more chemises to wear with my dresses and gowns.  I'll need them come Pennsic!   Who else is going?