Make Your Own Niddy Noddy

I wrote an article on Wizzley about making a niddy noddy and how to use one. Read it HERE.

Fresh Batch of Fustic Dye

I did a fresh batch of fustic dye with just the blue vitriol this time. It came out pretty much exactly as the previous batch. I can't quite capture the color with the camera. It's a lovey green with yellow highlights.

Fustic and Copper

I saved the dye bath from the last post waiting for my little package of copper, or blue vitriol, to arrive. I knew it might make the wool more green so I added about a tablespoon full to the dye bath. This was the second batch of dyeing for the bath and it already had some alum in it. I didn't know what would come out. It turned out to be more of the khaki green I had read about. It's really an interesting color. I'm spinning some up to see it in a yarn.
I'll be doing another batch with fresh ingredients so I'll report back on that soon.

Pecan Dye

I've started an experiment - every batch of plant dye is an experiment!
I've read that pecans can be used as dyes much in the same way as black walnuts. I found some pecan trees and gathered a few nuts. It's early in the season so I didn't get many. I tried peeling off the outer green hull and ended up with a black thumbnail. The hulls DYED it.

I took a hammer and crushed the nuts and added water and left them to sit.

They've been sitting for about 3 days and have started to ferment. I'm going on a road trip for a day or two so they should be just about right when I get back.

Sun Dyeing with Kool-Aid and Rit Dye

I recently did some sun dyeing with Kool-Aid and Rit dye. Both came out great. It was easy to do, and the Kool-Aid dye is safe and easy to do with kids. Both came out very rich and deep though.

 

I have the complete tutorial HERE.

I finished the lichen dye and dyed some wool with it. It wasn't spectacular, but it is a nice brown. I wrote an article about the details on Wizzley (Click Here). Here's what it came out like. Not bad but a lot of time and work.

Lichen Dye

I started a fermentation batch of lichen dye. I read that I was supposed to let it sit for about four weeks. I'm determined to let it do its thing, but I forgot to write down when I started it. I have no idea now if it has been two weeks or four weeks. It could be six weeks for all I know. I read that most people don't let it sit long enough so I'm hanging in there as long as I can. I doubt that I'll get a real red, but the redder the better, as they say....

I tried to be careful with lichen and not gather anything that might be endangered. I stuck to the stuff that grows on branches that would blow off during a storm. I brought them in, dried them and stored them until I had enough for a batch. I might have to do a teensy bit just to see what it looks like.