Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Black Eyed Susan , Return of the Butt Rot

Return of the Butt Rot, Phaeolus Sweinitizii, 2009.
This was my first venture into the woods in quite some time, as my foot has been f......! unfortunately, but today, managed a forage and voila, Butt Rot. It was a young, spongy, still vibrant butt rot, and so I chopped it up, put it into a pot of hot water, cooked it for several hours, strained, and added the above silk/wool, and kid mohair, both which were unmordanted. It turned a lovely yellow, but who needs more yellow, not I apparently, so I let it soak, not cooking the wool for several hours, then lifted the wool, added one quarter teaspoon of iron, with l tsp of cream of tartar, which is suppose to even out the iron results, and it turned a wonderful green almost immediately...Left it for an hour or so, then rinsed...I do have alkaline water at 8 and so this does influence my dyeing..I just use it anyway , and allow for that alkalinity, not being a purist it doesn't matter to me, and it is easier for me out of the tap...not that I am doing a research paper on this subject so 8 alkalinity is okay for my needs...so if using this recipe you might want to take this into account...or not....

]phaeolus schweinitzii....fresh picked and more to come as we found young ones budding forth at the base of other fir trees

2 comments:

Leena said...

Cedar, I love that green, thank you for the recipe.. it might be higher pH in your water than in ours which is why I haven't had such a gorgeus color. Have to try again:)

cedar said...

thanks Leena for the compliments...I love that green, the ph is so alkaline because we have a deep well with limestone way under the ground and this butt rot was fairly fresh and gave a great gold at first before the iron....good luck