Lakes for Painting

Over a year ago, I bought some dye materials with grand plans to get back to dyeing. That never happened, but I always look forward to Micky’s blog post so I can be inspired. This one struck my interest because my friend Elsebeth Ffarberyn (https://kithandkinsite.wordpress.com/) is a painter who has experimented with making her own paints. Her class on painting with egg tempera was very cool and I would like to try doing it again. She has also run many Zoom paint nights so that we could practice painting portraits of other friends in medieval clothing. I have a lot of fun at them, and now I am tempted to get back to dyeing just so I can have leftovers that I can turn into lakes.

Laques – Lakes

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Naalbinding socks for Lucia

When my dear friend Lucia de Enzinas was elevated to the order of the Pelican (the highest award for service in our medieval group) recently, she asked for a pair for naalbinding socks. She asked for them just a week before her elevation so they weren’t done in time, but I finally finished them this week.

I used skeins of wool that I had previously dyed with walnut for the brown and something yellow. I think it may have been camomile that I had saved for many years from a group dyeing project my sorely missed friend Etaoin o Fearghal had put together. If so, it is perfect, as it draws together two of the women I care about most, both of whom were/are Laurels and Pelicans.

I have made many socks over the years, but this was the first time I tried working the heel from the top down, then going back to add more onto the ankle. I used the Coppergate/York stitch, which always comes out a bit twisty, but is nice and smooth against the foot. The biggest challenge was making them during a pandemic. I had time to work on them, but getting together regularly to check the fit wasn’t an option. Her feet are smaller than mine, and I can just squeeze them on, so hopefully they will be okay.

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Elevation Dye Day

Today a friend was elevated to the Order of the Laurel, the highest recognition in the Society for Creative Anachronism. He is renowned for his work as a weaver and dyer. The event was held outdoors due to COVID, so it was a great opportunity to to play with dyes.

Various people brought pre-mordanted skeins of wool, linen and silk, pots, dyes, and even propane stoves. visitors were invited to try different dyebaths and take home the results. The choices were indigo (blue), weld (yellow), brazilwood (purple-red), madder (brick red), and a mystery dye that had been from India withput a label that we decided was kamala. We created a glorious rainbow of colours.

Kamala was new to me but someone thought the colour looked right. Kamala comes from an evergreen tree in India and gives a tawny gold to tangerine colour. If treated with soda ash (to raise the ph), the colour becomes more intense. When we dipped a bit of the wool in a tub of water treated with soda ash, it turned a lovely salmon colour.

The first line of skeins hung to dry

More colours

Kamala with the soda ash treated sample to the right

My results: weld, indigo over weld, indigo, kamala, madder, brazilwood from a long bath, brazilwood from a shorter bath to get pink

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Dyeing with Walnut

I have had three bottles of walnut husks in liquid in my cupboard for years. I finally broke one out this week to try dyeing with it. The first thing I learned was that I have probably done it wrong from the beginning. I should have used the green husks when they were fresh. Undeterred, here is what I did.

First, I estimated how many walnuts had been in the jar to start; using the estimate of one nut per 20 grams of fibre, I should have used five nuts for 100 grams of fibre (my skeins were 50 g each). I had more nuts (maybe 7 or 8), but decided that was close enough. Some of the husks had been partly dried when thrown into the liquid, and it appears that you need a lot more dried than fresh walnut to get a good colour. In any case, I needed a dye liquor that was almost black, so I poured the liquor into a pot, added more water, tied the husks into a piece of cheesecloth, and boiled s for a good 90 minutes. Then I removed the husks, added skeins that I had previously soaked (no mordant), let them boil gently for another 90 minutes, and then allowed the water to cool overnight. After pulling out the wool, rinsing and letting it dry, I had a very nice brown colour.

However, I had read that a darker brown was possible with an iron after bath. After digging around the internet a bit, I learned at such an after bath could be created by soaking iron nails or other metal in a mix of water and vinegar. When you have a nice dark reddish liquid (something that can take weeks), you can use that as a mordant or as an after bath. Naturally, that was too long to wait, so I threw a cup or so of vinegar into a rusty cast-iron pot, heated it, and added one of the skeins of wool. Iron can damage the fibres, so I cooked it for only 20 minutes, then pulled it out and rinsed. The result is a slightly darker brown that definitely has more of a black than the reddish tone of the original.

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Dyeing with Camomile (finishing an ancient UFO)

Thia project dates from August 1992. At the time, my friend Etaoin had the idea of getting dyers from all over to take home a pre-prepared package of dyer’s camomile and a 50g skein of wool, dye it and record exactly what they did, then mail it back to Etaoin. She would then prepare samplers for each participant, with pieces from each kit. I know I did one kit way back in the day; I don’t know how many others completed them because I never got a sampler back.

I put the yarn in an enamel pot with about 2 grams of alum and tap water and let it soak overnight. The next day, I drained the water and added fresh tap water along with all the chamomile and let it simmer on the stove for several hours (possibly as long as four hours, since I got distracted with paint night and only noticed it was still on when I went to clean y brushes and saw how much water had evaporated). I let the yarn soak in the water overnight and most of today, then rinsed it and hung it to dry. I am pleased with this gold colour.

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Dyeing with Madder

I used the madder I had been soaking since late October (https://siglindesarts.wordpress.com/2020/10/27/madder/) and this is how the experiment turned out. I poured the madder liquid into a pot and weighed the madder root. I had 150g, so I took an equal amount of wool and soaked it overnight in a pot of tap water with 50g of alum. I heated the mixture but didn’t allow it to reach a boil, and once it was warm I let let it cool naturally. The next day, I poured out the alum water, added the madder water, tied the madder roots into a piece of cheesecloth, added enough water to cover, and heated the water. I kept it well warm, but well below boiling (the instructions I had found said to het to about 60C; I really need to invest in a thermometer). I let the pot simmer for about two hours, then let it cool naturally and sit for another full day. In retrospect, I should have used less wool, because I didn’t account for the water weight of the soaked madder. Still, I am not displeased with the resulting pink.

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Madder

Sometimes, benign neglect works to my advantage. About seven years ago, I planted madder in my back yard. I knew the best colours came after three years, so I just let it grow. Then I forgot about how many years I had been doing that, until I came across my old blog post where I mentioned planting it. A week or so later a friend posted pictures of her most recent project using fermented fresh madder, so I was inspired to dig some up.

I washed it thoroughly, then chopped it as finely as I could with a pair of garden shears and tossed it into a large glass jar that I filled with water. I left the lid loose to encourage fermentation. So far it has been two days. I have read that I should allow madder to ferment for anywhere from 3 to 30 days.

This has been sitting for almost two days, so far. I had to put it in the window to show the colour, as it is almost black in regular light in my kitchen.

I will need to spin some wool to dye now, and then get it mordanted with alum. Apparently I need equal weights of madder and fibre. One of the joys of madder is that exhaust baths are possible. Hopefully I can achieve some nice pinks.

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Hearths, Ovens, and Related Tidbits

This article on hearths, ovens and fireplaces arrived in my mailbox and it had a few little treasures worth sharing (possibly more, depending on your interests). http://www.medievalhistories.com/open-hearths-ovens-fireplaces/

The first was this lovely image from 13th C Wurzburg of a man warming himself in front of a clay oven. I love the details of sausage hanging overhead, and his funnel-shaped cup that may hold gluwein or spiced beer. 

Warming by the Stove. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Cod. lat. 3900 fol. 1v.

The other point of interest was the development of the stube, or heated living room in German homes. When a wall was put between the part of the oven where it was fed, the back part could radiate heat into a small private room. This is a word I remember from living in Germany, and a quick Google search showed that many restaurants/guest rooms (gaststube) still have large tiled ovens in their dining areas, similar to this one from Oberland, near Munich: 

The article also mentioned chimneys dating to the Merovingian period, which led me down another rabbit hole to the Musée des Temps Barbares in Marle, the north of France. Their website has some interesting experimental archaeology, and has me keen to get back to dyeing wool. I want to know more about their evidence for all the plants they use, but mainly I’m happy because many are plants I can find where I live. http://www.museedestempsbarbares.fr/lhabitat-merovingien-de-goudelancourt-les-pierrepont/. Their bean soup recipe also has me excited to see if I can get more Martock beans from my garden this year. I was given a few beans last year and managed to harvest more. Maybe this year I can grow enough for a pot of soup.

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I made blue things!

Okay, I dyed a bit of wool in the leftovers from one of my woad preservation experiments, but it’s a start.

My first experiment was actually the third time with using the instructions at this site: http://www.woad.org.uk/html/extraction.html. The first time, it worked quite well but my son threw out the resulting woad in a fit of kitchen tidying. The second time, didn’t follow the instructions and ended up with a bit of chlorophyll at the bottom of a jar. This time, I managed to do almost everything according to the instructions. I should have waited a bit longer before cutting the leaves, and forgot to cover them in plastic overnight, and I didn’t consolidate the liquid after the first draining, but none of those errors appear to have been fatal. You can’t really tell in the picture below, but the jar has some solids settling to the bottom.

I used the leftover liquid to dye some wool. I didn’t have any Spectralite or sodium dithionite. Looking elsewhere, that didn’t appear to be a critical lack. As I had added soda ash to process the woad I assumed it was still in the liquid and didn’t add more. That may have been a mistake. I’ll try again with soda ash to see if I can get a bit more colour out of the exhaust bath. Woad.org says that there isn’t much woad in the leftover liquid, so I’m pleased with the little bit of colour I did achieve.

Finally, I made a woad ball. using these instructions: http://www.woad.org.uk/html/woad_balls.html. I followed all the instructions except for the one about wearing gloves (I could only find one, and a finger ripped off as I was putting it on the first time, so this instruction was only partly followed). Also, though it wasn’t written down, there should have been an instruction about wearing a big apron or old clothes that you don’t mind getting permanently splotched with woad juice.  I will get to use the woad ball later this summer, when my friend Eluned lets me play with her urine fermentation vat.

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Dyeing with Queen Anne’s Lace

I found a bag of frozen “tea” from a couple of years ago, so I decided to pull it out and dye a bit of wool with it. I set the freezer bag on the counter to thaw, which was a very bad plan. My blue teapot cover is now greeny-yellow all around the bottom, as the bag leaked and the cover soaked up much of the liquid. That meant, of course, that I didn’t have nearly as much liquid as anticipated for dyeing. Nevertheless, I soaked some wool with a bit of cream of tartar as mordant, then simmered the wool in the tea for well over an hour. The results were disappointing, but unsurprising. In the pot, the wool looked like it had turned a pale olive blah colour. Once I pulled it out and rinsed it, the colour brightened up to be the palest of pale yellow blah colours. Maybe I could overdye it with woad to make it a slightly greenish blue. It’s not much good for anything else at the moment. Oh well, at least it’s another project completed.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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