New line in development

So a little teaser, I'm starting a new hand painted sock line up, it's not natural dyeing, but it is green dyeing-so never fear. I ordered my dye today and my super wash sock yarns arriving soon. Once that get's rolling some natural surprises will be coming...so keep your eyes peeled for that secret to escape. 

Madder root dye bath no. 2

After letting my dyestuff soak in a fresh water bath overnight and putting two new premordanted skeins in and lightest colored skein from the first dyebath I have found two things: that changing the water out after you've dyed yarn won't yield a redder color but a paler orange rust and you can't over dye with the second dye bath. I did find however that by using little mini skeins youcan test hypotheses quick.  I get the reddest rust with the first dyebath, medium tone rust from letting yarn sit in the soaking water in the sun all day adding some 1st dye bath letting the mixture sit over night, and getting the lightest rust from the second dye bath.  I think I want to do a blue or purple next in natural dyes.  I've been reading about greener shades dyes and I might have to retract my statement about them. They are green and allow for hand painted yan to be worked encredibly.  Here's the picture of the yarns.

Madder dyebath

Natural dye number 2: madder root.  So I did two dye bath tests.  Same madder two different baths.  The first trial I used three different yarns Plymouth's happy feet, dancing toes, and Cestari superfine merino sock yarn. They yielded a brick(happy feet) to rust red, both on the orange end of red.  The second dye bath, which I'm still waiting on to finish, I put 2 Cestari 3ply dk and reintroduced the dancing toes to see what a second soak would do. So far I'm getting oranges from the Cestari and the dancing toes has deepened in its redness.  Unless I use a cream of tartar and iron mordant I'm not going to have any type of blue introduced. Even then it would be a purple brown.
I think the only way to get a red on the blue end of the spectrum I'll have to break down and buy cochineal extract, which is on the higher end of the price scale for dyes, and its crushed bugs, which I didn't really want to use anyway. But if I want to offer a proper red in my yarn line I'll have to bite the bullet and get it. Anyway here is the picture of the first dyebath.

Dye results

So they are dry, my dye blanks are ready for their close up. I'm really pleased with the way the dye turned out on the large one. I'm so overwhelmed and tired from tnna but this was such a great opportunity and I can never thank my boss at the Knit 'n Knibble enough.

Dye class

So what do you get when you cross an armoire, dye, yarn and a bath tub? My freshly dyed yarn hanging in the hotel armoire after being rinsed in the hotel bath tub.  Yes in the pursuit of furthing my yarn dyeing business I decided I needed to drop a little extra knowledge in the mix. 
I used Greener Dyes which I think I will use to hand paint a line of superwash sock yarn.  I highly recommend using these if you want a low environmental impact acid dye.
I kind of went a little crazy with the experimentation of pictoral dyeing but I think that yarn blank turned out well, I'll call it my Arizona Sunset.  The other two blanks are complimentary colors, each blank being split complimentary or analogous. I think they turned out real well, but I still need to do a more in depth color study soon.  Also if any one knows of a good yarn base thats a 100% wool I would think you are awesome. Anyway, here's the parting shot of the armoire. I'll upload the pic of the finished product later, once it dries.

Tansy Yellow-My first naturally hand dyed yarn.

So I got up later than usual(9am), ate a good breakfast-the bacon and egg type, and went outside to set up for yarn dying.  I mordanted the yarn while cooking the tansy.  Then once that was done I rinsed the yarn and took the flowers out. And put the yarn in to the dye pot.   I now have two beautiful golden yellow skeins of yarn.  This has taught me to watch your burner because the flame might go out if winds blowing enough and that I need more pots because how I did everything today with only two was quite interesting.

My first natural dye bath

Yay my first natural dye bath!  I'm using tansy to get a deep yellow.  I'm so excited.  So I'm documenting like crazy so I get consistency.  As of now the yarn is washed and the flowers are soaking overnight.  Tomorrow I get to premordant the yarn with alum and then let the dye bath begin.  So here's the shot of me starting to add the tansy to the pot to soak overnight.  Yay! Pictures tomorrow of the end product...dyeing yarn and cooking casserole for Thanksgiving!