purple plus

Purples ruled the pots the last few days
I have been trying for good purple...what I read was to use cochineal and add some logwood grey, so this the end result...the silk, and silk boucle came out beautifully and the kid mohair was used as an exhaust bath...the exhaust was basically the cochineal and so the pinkish tones...the silks sucked up all the purple. I have spent the last few days labeling skeins and winding skeins, not a favourite of mine, but the markets start next week and I just received my fab labels from my graphic designer friend, and she did a great job.
I have divided them into "Hornby Dyed in the Wild" which are all the local plants I have gathered, mushroom, lichen, rhubarb, etc. and then others are labeled, "Dyes of the World" for the madder, cochineal, lac, fustic, osage, etc etc etc.....
I divided them into 50 gram skeins, with the help of my almost l6 year old pretend cool rasta grandson, and he did a great job winding and tying skeins...at 9 dollars an hour, it was worth it as my 61year old pretend cool grandmother's shoulder was pooched after so many skeins.
so now I have all the appropriate goodies, lets see if they sell this summer...I know I love them all and hope the feeling spreads, and I am loving natural dyeing again....oops lost my purple...
so back to labeling and sorting, and figuring what I want to do with the pounds and pounds of acid dyed roving I have and the skeins of wool, maybe have a sale table at the market for these items as I would like to clear the deck and only do the natural....so
any suggestions would be great, aside from giving it away of course, as I spent a fortune on it all...mostly bfl tops and silks....

its my birthday I can dye if I wanna, dye if I wanna

Well started the day with a weld bath, for the wool that is, and then dipped in iron and cream of tartar...and got this....it is definitely sagey in real life, but missed the greens in the photo...

Then on to visits and bagels, and yes, more dyeing mordanting and smelling the flowers...
Now sweet man is making dinner and I am soaking some onion skins, a birthday present from a like minded soul... and then to spin some tussah silk that I exhaust bath dyed in cochineal...I skeined up several colors and got them ready for market..
all in all I am having a wonderful "to dye for:" day...
next I am going to experiment with osage and logwood grey, trying for more green shades...and then some cochineal and logwood grey to get some purples....sounds like I know what I'm doing doesn't it...
am keeping samples and labeling the different types of wool, mordants, and dyebaths, so I have something to refer back to..now halfway through my dye journal, and want another format...saw one the other day from a dynamite natural dyer who had hers in a binder, in the plastic covered sheets, and had the plant, different fibres it dyes, mordants, and was very exact...and think I want to aspire to this format...although exact wouldn't really be me...I can get more factual about the work in this format...
so on to another year, renewal...positive energy....and first day of summer to boot, what more can a girl ask for...oh, praline ice cream, right, its on its way....


logwood grey, matter exhaust bath, cochineal, and matter lst bath

Celebrity Blow up

just wanted to add that if you want a real color hit, click on those last two pics...the silk boucle, and silks are just too much..

one handi work

Truly one handed handi work, but dyeing seems to be in for the past few weeks...knitting slightly painful but getting better, so for my upcoming birthday, sweet man, got me some lovely natural dyes in extract....so I can eventually, perhaps tomorrow, paint some skeins in multi colors...if I wasn't so pooped I'd be on that right now...so madder was in the works and the lovely deep old carpet oranges are just too much, and the batch went on and on with several layers of ever diminishing oranges...just finally having the last soak in the exhaust, because even if the color or shade is not desirable you can over dye or paint...also did some osage orange, very lovely yellows, potentially to dip in indigo, and then two batches of cochineal, one from the bugs grounds by moi. and the other an extract...so the extracts are too easy to use, feels like cheating.

In the Cochineal made from bugs I put some silk and wool skeins and after dyeing swished one skein in ammonia and water, for about a minute, and it definitely made a difference, brought the blue tones out of the red, and then did multi dyes of the cochineal, until I reached the softest pink....then with the extract it was a whole different thing...also did some roving which I would do in one step dyeing put the mordant right into the dyepot with the dye and this seems to be working fine...so much fun...even one handed, although that is getting a bit boring...
am now taking the cast off at night for a breather and arnica...tomorrow more colors, think I will do some fustic and some blending of extracts....hold me back!!!!