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Katrin How on earth did they do it?
27. März 2024
Ah, that's good to know! I might have a look around just out of curiosity. I've since learned that w...
Heather Athebyne How on earth did they do it?
25. März 2024
...though not entirely easy. I've been able to get my hands on a few strands over the years for Geor...
Katrin Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
Yes, that would sort of fit that aspect - but you can also go from bits of woods to sticks if you ar...
Bruce Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
I think the closest English equivalent would be 'Down the rabbit hole'. It has one entrance (No, not...
Harma Spring is Coming.
20. Februar 2024
I'm definitely jealous! Mine disapeared except for one pathetic little flower. But the first daffodi...

I made things red!

When people asked me if I did dyeing, too, my usual answer is something along the lines of "no, I don't - there's no reason why I should do everything, and I have wonderful colleagues I can hire for that".

However... I have peeked in a lot of pots when my colleagues were dyeing. I have been enjoying their lovely colours for ages. I learned a lot about what to use, and in what concentration, and in what sequence, when we were discussing colour choices for museum reconstruction projects.

And starting with the dyeing experiment in 2012, I also got to stir some pots with dye myself... all on my own. Now, for the dyeing experiment, you don't need to know how to dye. You just need to follow the recipe to the last letter - so all the creativity that is part of "real" dyeing work is gone. It's not even a big deal if there are spots on the yarn, because it is not about spotless dyeing, it is about finding out about the influence of metals.

Playing around, creatively, with colours, though - that does also appeal to me. Enter opportunity for that: after the last Forum, there was some madder left over, and some alum. That madder was already soaked (and had started to slightly ferment), so it was about time to be used.

And since I had decided to play around, I did exactly that. I stuffed Romney top into a stocking leg (to cut down on madder particles in the fibre, and on felting), and off it went into the mordant.

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After mordanting, it took a nice bath in the madder liquid...

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... but came out rather splotchier than hoped for, due to the middle of the stocking leg filling being rather compressed. Now I don't mind splotchy (in modern stuff, not the historical, mind you) - but the light spots seemed almost undyed, and that was too much (or too little) for my taste.

So I stuck it in again, sans the stocking leg this time (which was, instead, used to hold the madder sludge).

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The end result is rather nice, I think:

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It is a warm, bright red that is hard to photograph. And of course it is full of madder dust, but that just can't be avoided when dyeing with that stuff.

So at some point in the medium future, there might be some madder spinning in store for me...
0
Weird day...
Need some editing done?
 

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Freitag, 29. März 2024

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