After sitting in the dye for 6 days, the colours I obtained from the oak galls and black beans are revealed!
From top:
1. Oak galls, no mordant
2. Oak galls, no mordant, iron modifier
3. Black turtle beans, alum mordant
4. Black turtle beans, acidic modifier
For my jumper project, I was aiming for a dark grey/brown for the main colour using an iron modifying solution on the oak gall dyed skeins. Unfortunately, I did not have enough of the iron solution and adding more to the bath with the yarn afterwards resulted in a patchy colouring. I’ve decided that I quite like the effect though so we’ll see how it looks once it’s knitted up!
For the blue skein, I decided that the colour of the skein straight from the dye vat was rather more greeny than I wanted. I had read somewhere that the colour could be modified to give a more purple blue by a vinegar bath so I added 4 tsp vinegar to a tub of water and added the rinsed skein. No immediate colour change was seen but after a while, it was clear that there was a slight improvement.
Hopefully the weather will improve and I’ll be able to get decent photos of how the actual skeins have turned out!
I’ve tried a few more dye materials today and will post about those results soon!
mako makes stuff 