Growing Colour Tyfu Lliw

This is both about growing colour quite literally as plants in my garden and also about using them. I dye fibres with natural dyes and use them to "paint" with. This is how I make my landscapes , mostly of the North Wales countryside Mae Tyfu Lliw yn enw addas iawn i'r 'blog' yma. Yr wyf yn cael hwyl yn tyfu bob math o flodau i Helen i'w defnyddio. Mae hi yn creu lluniau bendigedig, mae y lliwiau yn hollol naturiol, ac felly'n gweithio'n dda iawn yn rhoi lliw credadwy o'r wlad o'm cwmpas

Tuesday, 12 August 2008

Dyeing with Yarrow (Achillea Millefolium), Meadowsweet (Filipendula Almaria), Goldenrod (Solidago Canadensis)

Meadow Sweet

Golden Rod

Yarrow with Genista Tinctoria behind and Californian Poppies (not a dye plant to my knowledge) in front

posted by Helen
Yarrow MeadowSweet Golden Rod

All fibres pre mordanted with 8% alum. 7% cream of tartar. Plant material heated slowly overnight with no prior soaking , fibres added which were then heated till no increase in depth of colour. ( 12-24 hours) The Golden Rod was in a stainless steel pan on an electric ring at it lowest setting. The other two were in electric casseroles on low or keep warm settings which keeps the liquid at roughly 80 degrees C so well below boiling. I picked a 100g of yarrow and meadow sweet which have dyed about 50g of wool but the golden rod is a rolling dye bath. I add more flower heads when the resulting colour looks a bit pale and it has now been going for about a week.

6 comments:

Digitalgran16 August 2008 at 09:24
Diddorol iawn Helen. Dwi mor falch o ddod ar draws Cymraes arall sydd yn blogio. Tydw i ddim yn gwneud y math yma o waith fy hun ond mae gen i Embellisher, felly hwyrach ei bod yn amser i mi ddechrau? Dim yn hawdd ac yn byw mewn fflat!
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Leena18 August 2008 at 08:19
Goldenrod color looks really strong, do you have the fibers together with plant material in the same pot?
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Helen18 August 2008 at 21:02
Chi ydi'r Gymraes cyntaf i 'flogio' yn Gymraeg. Rydw i hefyd yn falch o gael ateb yn Gymraeg! Enys yw'r Gymraes. Yr ydym yn rhannu y 'blog' ond nid ydi hi yn dda iawn am sgwennu arno; oherwydd mae hi yn thy brysur yn tyfu y blodau. Fi, Enys, sydd wedi sywennu dros Helen ond mi wnaf geisio cael hyd i amser i 'flogio' mwy. Mae Helen yn deud mae yr ateb yw 'solar dyeing',neu defnyddio 'slow cooker'. Cysylltwch eto am fwy o fanylion.
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Helen18 August 2008 at 22:02
Hi Leena I put the fibres in with the golden rod and then kept on adding flower heads till I got a really deep rich colour.
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cedar19 August 2008 at 17:30
I too, just dyed with goldenrod, soaking overnight, then boiling up for an hour, then putting mordanted (alum and COT) in bath and initially it was bright yellow, but in the cooking either too long or too hot, it became a muddier yellow, still good but I think I should have kept the temp down, your colors look great on the raw fleece...
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Helen29 August 2008 at 20:40
Hi Cedar I try and keep the temperatures down expecially when dyeing yellows as I think they do go dull.
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