1. Dyebaths
2. Dyeing Fibers
3. Alternate methods of mordanting and dyeing
4. Lightfastness, colorfastness, and testing thereof
5. Third section: Some Definations
6. Bibliography and Suggested Reading
7. Listing of WWW sites used in research (check them out if you want to!)

Dyebaths

With herbs and flowers, use less dried flower heads than fresh, except for dandelion and goldenrod flowers, which should not be used if dried. Cover the herbs or flowers with cold water, boil for about an hour or until the dyestuff looks colorless. Strain the liquid into a pot, add the correct amount of water, and immerse the wet, mordanted fibers in the dyebath. Heat almost to boiling and simmer for another hour. Give the dyebath time to cool slightly, take out the fibers, rinse in water the same temperature as what it was removed from, and dry.

When dyeing with leaves, chop them into small pieces before adding them to the dyebath. Follow the guidelines above, but boil for at least an hour to release the color.

Berries should have a ratio of a gallon to every two to four ounces of wool. Mash all the juice from them, strain out the remaining particles of berry, and use the juice for a simmering dyebath.

Woody materials, such as roots and barks, are very reluctant to lose their color; chopping or shredding them into one to three inch long strips makes them do so faster. If you find this too large a task, you could enlist some friends, or perhaps a proddy flit with some energy to burn. I wouldn't /advise/ asking a proddy dragon, but if you really want to... Back to the subject at hand: soak the prepared dyestuff for twelve to twenty-four hours, then bring the water and dyestuff to a boil, and simmer vigourously for five or six hours, making sure to add water as it evaporates. The boiling time does vary with the dyestuff being used, but for the most part it takes this long to fully release the color. Contine to boil until no more color is released.

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Dyeing Fibers

If you are dyeing wool yarn (and most likely any other yarn), first wind the yarn into skeins of desired weight. Should what you are dyeing happen to be smaller or larger than what you normally dye, adjust the amount of mordant, water, and dyestuff accordingly. Small skeins absorb the dye much faster and more evenly than large skeins, which sometimes take an immensely long time to dry. Small ones can speed up your turnover time. Tie the skeins with pale undyed string, as colored string may not be colorfast.

Small amounts of clean, raw fleece can be placed in a lightweight drawstring bag and added to a regular dyebath with other fibers; when dyeing a whole fleece try not to touch the wool. Prepare a dyebath with the mordants and dyestuff needed using the simultaneous mordanting. Let the dyebath cool, then strain out the dyestuff before adding the wetted, warm wool, proceeding as with the yarns.

Usually fabrics are harder to dye evenly than yarns; the information I have at hand deals with cotton. As for the others...Well, plant fibers don't take metallic mordants very well, but if tannin (tannic acid) is used as a assistant, the two mordants will bond, the tannin acting as a bridge. Also, they can be safely boiled during the mordanting, not being as suspectible to high tempertures. Use more water in the dyepot when dyeing cotton fabrics; the fiber should have lots of room to move around in the dyebath. Make certain that the fabric does not linger on the bottom of the dyepot overlong, as this it will cause spotting and uneven dyeing. Simmer for at least one hour, and let the fabric cool in the dyebath. Once cooled, remove, wash with gentle soap, rinse well, and hang to dry.

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Alternate methods of mordanting and dyeing

To mordant, follow the directions below, but stir the fiber occaisionally and cut back the mordant to roughly that required for postmordanting.

To dye, first take a large glass jar, place a tablespoon or so of your dyestuff in it, pour one cup (or ratio equivalent to your dyestuff), and stir. Then fill the jar three quarters full of warm water, wet whatever you are planning to dye in water of the same temperture, add it to the jar, put the lid on, and set it in strong sunlight . Examine the color daily and remove dyed fiber from the jar when desired color has been reached, rinse, and dry. Be warned that when dry the fiber will be a shade or two lighter than when wet.

To produce a sun-assisted basic dyebath of Indigofera tinctoria, pack the leaves in a container, cover with water of about 100 degrees fairenheight, and lid tightly before setting it in a sunny areas and leaving it for twenty-four hours, give or take a bit. After you have retrieved it, strain out the leaves and the resulting liquid is your basic dyebath.

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Lightfastness, colorfastness, and testing thereof

To test lightfastness, you can either hang several lengths of whatever halfway in and halfway out of a closed box set on a bright, sunny windowsill or weigh down pieces of whatever with a rock on a windowsill, as stated previously, for a time before comparing them with pieces of the same fabric that have been stored far from any lit glows. (Use the box again, perhaps?)

To test colorfastness, take a jar with warm water and mild soap, place a small length of yarn or piece of fabric in it, and shake. Examine it carefully; has the color bled? If not, test passed with flying colors. (Oops... Hey, you can live with a play on words, can't you?) If it has, experiment to find and eliminate the cause.

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Third section: Some Definations

Assistants: help the stuff being dyed asorb the color better.

Additives: something added to the dyebath in small amounts to change the color.

Colorfast: the same as washfast; something that is color or washfast will not change the color of the washwater or things that come in contact with it.

Dye: liquid used to change the color of many things, most often leather, fabric, and yarn.

Dyebath: basically water with plant material that has been boiled and simmered long enough to release the colors.

Dyestuff: the plant material used to produce dye.

Lightfast: That which does not fade in sunlight, or at least not easily.

Mordant: a chemical agent that affixes the dye particles more firmly to the fabric, which makes it more colorfast.

Premordanting: mordanting before dyeing.

Postmordanting: mordanting after dyeing.

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Bibliography and Suggested Reading

E. McD. Schetky, "Early American Dyeing," in _Herbs for Use and Delight_, ed. Daniel J. Foley (New York: Dover Publications, 1974), pgs. 243-251

Ann Sutton, Peter Collingwood, and Geraldine St Aubyn Hubbard, "The Craft of the Weaver," (Asheville: Lark Books, 1983), pgs. 27-35

Bobbi McRae, "Colors from Nature" (Pownal: Storey Communications, 1993), pgs. 3-60

Eliot Wigginton, ed., "Foxfire 2", Foxfire Series, (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1975), pgs. 207-212

Arnold and Connie Krochmel, "The Complete Illustrated Book of Dyes from Natural Sources," (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974)

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Listing of WWW sites used in research (check them out if you want to!)

http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/hedges.html

http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/

http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/edibpond.html

http://clever.net/quinion/words/colour.htm

http://www.net-link.net/~rowan/woad.html

http://www.lars.bbsrc.ac.uk/plantsci/weld.html

http://www.lars.bbsrc.ac.uk/plantsci/madder.html

http://www.lars.bbsrc.ac.uk/plantsci/woad.html

http://www.peg.apc.org/~bawinanga/fibreanddye.html

http://www.watson.org/rivendell/crafts.html

http://138.116.13.3/htmlpages/escfac/dlivesay/Chrono.html

http://www.isc.tamu.edu/FLORA/328Fall96/fiberdye.html

http://www.io.org/~jackal/Weavers/encyc.html

http://countrylife.net/ethnobotany/

http://www.net-link.net/~rowan/woad.html

http://www.pref.tokushima.jp/awa_life/february/boomer.html

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