Friday, April 06, 2012

today's dye pot... whatever


I was kind of in a mood yesterday.  Or rather, wasn't in the mood... for any manner of nonsense.  You know those days?  I think it's the pull of the moon or something.  Anyway, on top of normal daily nonsense, my dyepot was giving me fits too.  I had lopped off some nettles to use for dyeing and instead of the green I had hoped for, the water turned a tepid pink that my fibers didn't want to pick up at all. 


I tried a handful of my usual tricks, to no avail.  I pulled up some nettle roots and added more plants, nothing.  At which point I said... channeling my inner 13 year old... whatever.

Rather than ditch the whole dye pot, I went outside and found some curly dock growing amongst the nettles, and added the roots to the dye water.  Not much going on there either.  Whatever.  In went the tops.  Hmm...a little more color.  Enough color to convince me to throw the fiber back in the pot.


I let it to stew overnight and this morning we have shades of yellow with just a hint of green.  Kind of like limp celery tops.  It's really not a bad color.


I'm pretty sure, given all of the different things going on in this dye pot, that I could never reproduce this.  But you know, whatever.

Happy Friday everyone!  May your day be sunny and nonsense-free.

2 comments:

Tree Dellinger said...

Scientists would call that research. Chefs would say it's a melange. Artists talk about their creativity. I think it's just part of human nature to ask, "What if I add this, too?"

Annie Cholewa said...

That's what I love about plant dyeing, the unpredictability, and the option to over dye if all else fails ;D

But these are good, useful colours, and like you say, probably unrepeatable ones :D

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