Experimenting

After seeing how easy maggie’s dyeing was, and also seeing samples from another friend Kate, I was anxious to try something myself at home.  My collection of marigolds is not quite big enough, but the front yard was bursting with Black-eyed Susans.  Reading about them, it looked as if they would give some good color.  First I set about collecting the flowers and boiling them, letting them set all night, then simmering for 2 hours.

 

Next, I did the same with the leaves

 

Before dyeing the skein of yarn, and later 2 sections of  fiber (unfortunately I had not marked the fiber content, so do not know what kind of wool it was), each group was soaked for 20 minutes in an Alum bath.  Then soaked in the dye bath.

 

Here are my results from the skein of ear, using the flower tops.  Kind of bland, especially compared to what I dyed earlier in the week.

This photo is of the 2 sections of roving one dyed with the flowers, and one with the leaves.  Negligible difference in either, and again, kind of bland looking.  I believe that the roving on the right was from the leaves, just a tad bit more yellow in it.  I am thinking that I will spin this test up, and then overdye it later.

 

 

Moral of the story is that it is not as simple as I thought.   I have some books on order from the library.  Also, will be taking a natural dyeing class this month at Vogue Knitting Live.