Herb Dyes
Isn’t it surprising that herbs—the source of foods, flavors, fragrances, and medicines—provide colors as well. Stirred with skeins of wool, the leaves, flowers, and roots of many herbs impart reds, blues, greens, yellows, browns, and grays.
Dyeing your own yarns can be a creative and enriching experience. Imagine wandering through the herb garden gathering plants, simmering them in large enamel pots to release their hues, gently moving skeins of wool through the colored waters, and the result—yarns of such pleasing colors.
MATERIALS
Before you get started, you will need the following materials:
1. Fibers.
You can dye wool, cotton, linen, or silk, but wool is the easiest (and the directions that follow assume you are dyeing wool). Finished fabrics can also be dyed, but it is difficult to achieve even coloring throughout the cloth.
2. Cotton thread.
The skeins should be tied loosely so they may be boiled, yet still be recovered as skeins.
3. Soap.
Mild soap or dish detergent for washing the skeins free of all grease, dirt, or chemicals that might repel dyes.
4. Water.
Lots of water, preferably soft. The minerals in hard water can affect the clarity of the dye. Rainwater is ideal if you can collect it. If you use tap water and it is hard, add a water softener.
5. Pots.
Stainless steel or enamel is best. They will not affect the color of the dyes. To dye a pound of fiber at a time, you will need a pot that can hold 4 1/2 gallons of water in addition to the yarn. It’s best to set aside pots specifically for dyeing rather than using your cooking pans. Although most of the materials you use are perfectly safe, some of the mordanting chemicals are poisonous.
6. Stirring rods.
Rods to stir and lift the yarn. Glass is best, but you can use plastic or wooden dowels. Wooden rods do absorb dye, so you will need a separate one for each dye that you create.
7. Sieve.
A sieve, cheesecloth, or a colander for straining the dye bath and removing plant material.
8. Mordants.
Alum, chrome, tin and iron. Cream of tartar is a supplement to these chemicals.
9. Measuring spoons and cups.
Stainless steel, plastic, or glass is best.
10. Thermometer.
It should read temperatures at least up to 212 degrees F.
11. Scale.
A letter scale will do.
PREPARING THE YARN
Before dyeing your wool, you will need to wash and mordant them. The following process is for skeins of yarn:
Tying: During both the washing and dyeing processes, the yarn gets swirled and agitated. To keep the strands together and prevent them from tangling, tie some cotton thread around the skein in a figure-eight fashion. Tie it tightly enough to keep the yarn together, but loosely enough that the dye can flow around the individual strands of yarn. In addition, if you knot the two ends of the skein together and then tie them loosely around the skein, you will easily find them later on when you work with your yarn.
Washing: And now, even though it looks clean and new, wash the skeins to remove any traces of dirt, oil, or chemicals that would repel the dye. Use a mild soap. The water should be warm (about 95 degrees F) but not hot. Squeeze the soapy water through the skein for several minutes. Rinse in water of the same temperature. After rinsing, squeeze the water from the skein, and then roll the yarn in a towel to remove more moisture. Hang the yarn to dry in a shady location, or if you are ready to mordant the yarn, you can use it immediately.
Mordanting wool: To set the colors and prevent them from fading or bleeding, you must mordant the yarn by simmering it in a diluted chemical bath. The most commonly used mordants are alum, chrome, tin and iron. Cream of tartar is used with some of the mordants to brighten colors. The mordant affects the shade of color you will get, so choose one according to what result you want.
If your yarn is dry, soak it in cool water for several minutes before placing it in the mordant solution.
When mordanting is complete, you may either dye your yarn right away or dry it in a shady spot and store it, except with chrome-mordanted skeins. Chrome reacts easily with light, and yarns treated with it should be dyed immediately.
Alum (potassium aluminum sulfate): Alum is the most stable and most commonly used mordant. For 1 pound of wool, use 4 ounces of alum (3 for fine wool), 1 ounce of cream of tartar, and 4 gallons of soft water. Boil a little of the water and dissolve the alum and cream of tartar in it. Start heating the remaining water, mixing in the mordant. When the water becomes lukewarm, add the wool. Slowly heat the water to boiling. Then lower the heat and simmer the water and wool for one hour. Let the mordant bath cool, then remove the wool, or let it soak in the solution overnight.
Chrome (potassium dichromate): Chrome warms the hue of colors, enhancing yellows and reds and muting greens. The process here is much the same as with alum, but chrome is very light sensitive, so the solution and the yarn must be kept out of the light. Because of this sensitivity, wool mordanted with chrome should be dyed immediately. Storage carries the possibility that light might affect the yarn and result in uneven dyeing. For 1 pound of wool, use 1/2 ounce of chrome, 3/4 ounce of cream of tartar, and 4 gallons of water. Boil a little of the water and dissolve the chemicals in it. Stir it into the remaining water. Cover the pot with a lid and heat the solution. When it is lukewarm, add the wool. Bring the solution just to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer everything for 3/4 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on the coarseness and thickness of the wool. Every now and then move the wool in the solution with a stirring rod. At the end of the simmering period, let the solution cool, remove the skeins, and gently squeeze the water out of them. Rinse in cool water, then squeeze it and roll it in a towel to remove moisture. Keep the yarn wrapped in the towel until you are ready to add it to the dye bath.
Tin (stannous chloride): Tin brightens most colors, but it is harsh on fibers and can make them brittle. After mordanting, it is best to rinse the yarn in soapy water. Follow the same procedure as for chrome mordanting, using 1/2 ounce of tin and 1/2 ounce of cream of tartar or oxalic acid crystals. Dissolve the cream of tartar or oxalic acid crystals in a little boiling water, add that to the remaining water, and then add the tin to the solution. When simmering is complete, rinse the yarn in warm, soapy water, then in warm, clear water, then in slightly cooler, clear water, and once more in a slightly soapy solution. Tin can be added directly to the dye bath to add brilliance to the color of the wool. Appropriately, this is called blooming. If you want to try this, add 2 teaspoons of tin dissolved in water to the bath 20 minutes before dying is complete.
Iron (ferrous sulfate): Iron grays the color of yarn and so is called a saddener. Rather than making a mordant solution, you add the iron to the dye bath at the end of the dyeing process. Use 1/2 ounce or less of iron and 1 ounce of cream of tartar. Dissolve both together in boiling water. When you’ve finished dyeing your wool, pull it out of the bath while you stir in the iron/cream of tartar solution. Put the wool back in the bath and simmer for 20 to 40 minutes, depending on the color you want. Iron also is hard on wool, so rinse the skeins two or three times. Squeeze out the water and dry the yarn in the shade.
Other options: A few herbs, such as tea, sumac, and black walnut contain their own mordant (usually a tannin). With these dyes you will not need to go through the mordanting procedure unless you want to vary the shade of the dye somewhat.
Besides the mordants, you can either acidify or alkalize the dye pot, often affecting the color greatly, say from red to blue. Use vinegar to acidify and clear ammonia to alkalize. A shortcut in mordanting: To save work, time, pots, and water, simply add the mordant directly to the dye bath. This can be done with all mordants and all dye baths. The limitation is that you will only get one color out of the bath. When using premordanted wool, you can put skeins with different mordants into one dye bath and get different shades of color.
THE DYE BATH
Once you have finished preparing the yarns to be dyed, you can begin working with the herbs. Many herbs can be used fresh or dried, but you will usually obtain brighter colors with fresh herbs, and you will probably enjoy working with them more.
Harvesting herbs: Plant material should be harvested when it is at its peak in order to obtain the brightest colors. Gather flowers when they are coming into full bloom and berries when they are ripe. Roots are best harvested in the fall, leaves in the spring. Bark should be harvested in the spring also, but if you let the spring pass without harvesting, bark taken in the fall will also produce nice dyes.
Remember, all herbs are not created equal. The amount of color they contain varies depending on environmental conditions and the season in which the plants are harvested. A person using plants grown along the coast of Massachusetts will obtain very different colors from someone in the mountains of Virginia who makes dyes from the same species.
Quantities: With some experience you will know exactly how much plant material to use, but as a general guideline, collect 1 peck of plant material to dye 1 pound of yarn. With nut hulls, wood, bark, or berries, use 1 pound; and with roots, 1/2 pound. It is always safer to have a little more than a little less.
For each pound of wool, cotton, or linen, use 4 to 4 1/2 gallons of soft water to prepare the dye bath.
Preparing the bath: Now it is time to chop leaves, stems, or roots; separate the petals from the flowers; or break up the nut hulls, wood, or bark to ready them for the dye bath. Preparation varies somewhat from herb to herb. Several good books are available with specific dye recipes, but the following guidelines will get you started:
Tough leaves, roots, nut hulls, and bark: These should be soaked overnight in 2 gallons of water. On the next day, strain the liquid and save it. Put the plant matter in another 2 gallons of water. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for one hour. (Bark may take a little longer.) Strain out the plant matter and combine the two quantities of water.
Flowers, fruits and tender leaves: Because these plant parts are delicate and easily damaged, they don’t need any soaking at all. Place them in 4 to 4 1/2 gallons of water; bring to a boil; and then simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until the material has given up its color. Strain out the herbs.
THE DYEING PROCESS
After all the preparation, you are finally ready to dye your yarns, and this is where it gets exciting. The stark fibers soon will bloom with nature’s colors.
Dyeing: If your yarn is dry, soak it for about an hour in lukewarm water before dyeing. Then place it in the dye bath, which should also be lukewarm, and slowly raise the temperature to a simmer. Move the yarn around in the bath with a glass or wooden rod and simmer for about one hour. Dyes made from flowers may take only about a half hour, while dyes from bark and roots may take up to two hours. Pull the yarn from the bath every now and then to check on the color. Dyeing is complete when you are happy with the color. Remember, the color of the yarn will get lighter as it dries, so leave it in the dye bath until its color is a little darker than what you want.
If the bath gets low during the dyeing process, lift out the wool and add water of the same temperature until the original level is reached. Replace the skein and continue dyeing. When you have finished with one skein, don’t throw that dye bath away! You won’t have used up all of the color in it, so go ahead and throw in another skein.
Rinsing : The dyed skein must be rinsed a few times in waters of successively cooler temperatures. The first rinse bath should be the same temperature as the dye bath. Continue to rinse the skein until water, and roll it in a towel to absorb more of the remaining moisture. Hang the skein in a shady spot to dry.
Simultaneous dyeing: You will be more successful with some herbs if you create the dye bath and dye the yarn at the same time—hence the name of this procedure, “simultaneous dyeing.” Rather than brew a dye bath, strain out the plant material, then add the yarn, wrap the plant material in thin cotton gab, and simmer it with the yarn. This procedure is used with delicate plant parts like flowers.
KEEPING RECORDS
Before you start to knit, weave, or embroider with your beautifully colored yarns; you ought to record what you’ve done. Dyeing does involve experimentation, given the great number of variables possible: different stands of herbs, different mordants, and different methods. Testing and recording allows you to keep track of what you’ve done so that you can repeat it or try to vary it in some way. Of course, because so many variables do exist in this process, you won’t ever get exactly the same shade twice, but you can gain some control over what you do if you keep records.
Testing: How well the color of the yarn holds up under bright light is certainly an important quality of your dye. One way to test this is to hang a set of yarn samples in a south facing window and keep a second set covered in a notebook. After a month, compare the two sets. Or you might want to wrap the yarn around a file card and keep half of it covered and expose the other half to direct sun. Again, after a month uncover all the yarn and check the results.
Recording: You actually shouldn’t save this step until the very last. Take notes throughout all of the stages of preparation and dyeing, beginning with the gathering of herbs. In your dye notebook, record the herbs used and when and where they were gathered. Make not of the amounts of plant material used, the type and amount of mordant, the quantity of water, and so forth. Record the time spent soaking and simmering the plant material to create the dye bath and the time spent simmering the yarn in the dye. Note the results of your light test, and finally write in any remarks you might have: pleasures, displeasures, and surprises. Beside each entry, you might want to attach a snippet of dyed yarn.
WOOL-HANDLING TIPS
Handle wool carefully. Stirring and drastic temperature changes can cause shrinkage and matting of the fibers.
1. Never agitate wool. Never stir the dye pot—poke. Lift and turn wool gently. Always have plenty of water around the yarn so the yarn swims and dives freely, without help.
2. Never shock wool by fast temperature changes. When transferring wool from one pot of water to another in mordanting or dyeing, the temperatures of the water should be close. During the rinsing process, cool wool gradually by rinsing it in successively cooler baths of water. Also, when raising the temperature of the mordant or dye bath, do it slowly.
3. Do not hang saturated wool. When lifting wool from the mordant, dye, or rinse, do not hold it over the water.
4. Do not wring or twist wool. Squeeze it gently to remove the water.
DYEING TIPS
• You do not have to cover the dye pot with a lid except when using chrome. However, covering your pots does prevent steam from escaping and helps to contain any odor.
• Dye the entire amount of yearn needed for a project in one dye bath. You won’t be able to produce the exact same shade again.
• If you don’t work in 1-pound quantities, 1/4 pound skeins are easy to work with. For the mordant and dye recipes given in this entry, use one-quarter the amount of ingredients.
• Adding white wine vinegar to the water at the rinse stage (about 1/4 cup per gallon) helps to soften wool.
COLORS
BLACKS
Alder
Black walnut
Yarrow
BLUES
Elder
Elecampane
Indigo
Oregon grape
Woad
BROWNS
Burdock
Cascara sagrada
Comfrey
Fennel
Geranium
Hops
Juniper
Madder
Onion
Pokeweed
Poplar
GOLD
Agrimony
Amaranth
Dock
Goldenrod
Lavender cotton
Mullein
Onion
Plantain
Poplar
Ragwort
Safflower
Salsify
Yarrow
GRAYS
Elder
Poplar
Raspberry
Sunflower
Yarrow
GREENS
Agrimony
Angelica
Barberry
Bayberry
Betony
Coltsfoot
Comfrey
Dock
Fennel
Foxglove
Goldenrod
Horsetail
Marjoram
Mullein
Rosemary
Sage
Salsify
Sunflower
Tansy
Uva-ursi
Weld
PINKS
Bloodroot
Pokeweed
Sorrel
Woad
PURPLES
Blackberry
Geranium
Grape
Lady’s bedstraw
REDS
Dandelion
Dock
Hops
Lady’s bedstraw
Madder
Pokeweed
Potentilla
St.-John’s-wort
Sweet woodruff
RUSTS
Pokeweed
Safflower
TANS
Barberry
Onion
Oregon grape
Raspberry
Sunflower
Sweet woodruff
Uva-ursi
YELLOWS
Agrimony
Barberry
Broom
Chamomile
Dandelion
Dock
Fennel
Fenugreek
Golden marguerite
Goldenrod
Grindelia
Horseradish
Lady’s bedstraw
Onion
Safflower
Saffron
Sage
St.-John’s-wort
Salsify
Sunflower
Tansy
Yarrow