Natural Dyeing Days July 2010
by Elaine on Aug.06, 2010, under Blog Posts
On July 10 and 11, 2010, 6 people came to my home and we dyed with natural dyes. The dyers came from far and near…one lady all the way from Ontario, others came from Port Alberni, Nanaimo and the rest were local. They brought freshly scoured and mordanted wools, silks, and alpaca yarns in natural white, greys and browns. There were three yellow dyes: weld, fustic and osage orange. In some of these dye baths we added a small amount of iron in the last 10 minutes to make greens. The reds we used included cochineal and madder. Logwood was used for purple. Both indigo and woad were used for blues, but also we overdyed the cochineal to get purples and the yellows to get more greens. We used walnut to get a soft, warm brown.
dyed yarns on the line
Group photo of happy dyers
