Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Excitement abounds...

Well I am way too excited about today's dyeing, perhaps I have a problem....
To start with I dyed with the peachy one with the hypoloma fasciculare(lobster) which I peeled and put in hot water, mine being alkaline, and then left overnight, it was peachy...then I boiled it and it darkened big time, to burgundy, then I added three skeins of 50/50 silk wool, and voila peachy keen...I am thrilled...not as rosy but more peachy don;'t know whether it was that the water alkalinity was about 8.5 and maybe if I had added ammonia and boosted it , it would be rosier.... I went and gathered more and will experiment next week.....
then I heated up the phaeolus, and added all kinds of lusciousness, silk, cashmere, silk/wool, cashmere silk, and got it a golden yellow, and then added the infamous half tsp. of iron, mixed with a titch of cot...and cooked another 30 minutes or so, and yum.....I can hardly keep my eyes of it...I am definitely a color addict...no doubt....I keep getting up and checking it out...it is alchemy...
And the last photo is the logwood grey and iron where I tried to get a black out of it, no luck but a lovely , darker than this appears, blue deep slatey grey.....another yum, and they all look great together....so it was a major fun day...had my sister with me and she got to see the iron change the phaeolus and was duly impressed..and I got to give up a bunch of yarn to her so it was a good day all around...
and the season has just started...and the rain is coming down..and the mushrooms are coming up....yeh...

1 comment:

cedar said...

Chris: good idea, I will try both, ammonia (more alkalinity) and vinegar, the peachy to rose is what I am going to try for, more rose less orange...I will post the results...