I´ve been dyeing wool (yarn: einband from istex) with plants for the last week or so. I started preparing some time ago: searching 2 old, big pots at fleamarkets, buying some chemicals, paddles, thermometer and some other things you need to do this. Last week, when I was coming home with my boys from kindergarten, I saw some "Rumex longifolius" and decided the big day has arrived: I´m finally ready to dye my wool with plants, starting with Rumex longifolius!
Yesterday was the second time I dyed, using onion peel I´ve been collecting for a few months now. I must say, wool-dyeing with plants is a bit messy, complicated and time-consuming BUT I LOVE IT anyway! :-) And when you have so much fun doing something, like I´ve been having doing this, negative factors like those above sort of vanish.
What I love about it:
1. It´s so fascinating, getting the colours for your wool and knitting-projects from nature.
2. You never really know, what colour you are exactly getting from the pots - every single time is an adventure and it´s a magical moment, when you pull the wool out of the pot to see the colour of it!
3. The colours you get are unlike everything you can buy from stores - much deeper, beautiful shades of the colours of nature and earth... really hard to describe and almost impossible to see on fotos.
The next thing I´m going to try out is Lupina - you can find that plant everywhere right now in Iceland. I´ve been told, you get different shades of green with Lupina - and since I´ve got 2 shades of yellow (from Rumex longifolius) and 2 shades of orange/brownish from the onionpeel I think it´s time for green now! :-) Here you have some pictures of the process:
The wool before the whole process:
Wool soaking in water over night:
Plants soaking in water over night:
Cooking plants to get the colour out of them:
Cooking the wool in mordant:
Cooking the wool in the plant-colour:
And this is what I got from Rumex longifolius, 2 shades of yellow, on the right: 1. dye, on the left: 2. dye. You can´t really see the colours on those pictures:
Onion peel: on the left: 2. dye, on the right: 1. dye
Vá! Þetta er flott! Fallegir litir :)
ReplyDeleteÞað er skemmtilegt að gera svona tilraunir. Heldurðu að það sé hægt að lita ull með mosa?
Mér finnst mosaliturinn æðislegur.
Sæll RodPrjónar! Takk fyrir! Maður fær svo sannarlega sérstaka liti úr plöntunum. Ég veit að það er hægt að fá lit úr einhverjum tegundum mosa - litunarmosa td. en maður fær mjög fallega brúna tóna úr honum. Einhversstaðar las ég líka að í gamla daga hefði verið litað með grámosa - veit ekki hvaða litur kemur úr honum. Mosaliturinn er dásamlegur - ekki ólíklegt að hann fáist úr einhverju öðru en mosa... læt þig vita þegar ég átta mig á því. Kíktu á "Hespa" á facebook ef þú ert þar inni, það er kona sem litar og litar endalaust úr íslenskum jurtum... hægt að fylgjast með því sem hún er að gera þar og sjá litina í ullinni hjá henni.
ReplyDeleteLitirnir eru ofsalega fallegir, væri til í að sjá þá með berum augum, örugglega enn fallegri! Og þetta virkar ferlega spennandi og eitthvað svo girnilegt að sjá þetta í pottunum!
ReplyDeletevery intereseting, have to try this out, thank you for sharing..ciao ciao Christa
ReplyDeleteYou really should try this out if you can - it´s like magic and the colours are so beautiful! I haven´t had one single ugly/bad colour yet!
ReplyDelete