I dyed with ivy berries from our garden a few springs ago, and got a nice purple-y mid brown colour- it’s hard to describe… it has warm pink tones to it. And impossible to photograph it accurately! I mordanted with alum, and used rainwater. I’ve not used the yarn in a project yet. It has stayed colourfast; I think it must be 3 years now. Natural dyes from the garden can turn out quite differently, I find! 😊
"Hand shoes!" I love it. The pink and purple colors were very pretty, but you said stinky? Let us know if/when the stink goes away? Would a different or no mordant let the ivy berry color leave that pretty light purple color, I wonder? If a neighbor saw me I would say "I'm doing witchy stuff! I'm taking these berries to make dye!" Who knows, they might smile and say "Cool!" Hugs
Hi Jente, I hope you're OK xx ❣️❣️❣️ Thankyou so much for sharing this video podcast. I love your experiments, from your "witches" garden. Dying from nature is so fun to watch. I wonder what reaction I'd get if I went into a shop and asked if they had any "Hand shoes" Ohh crushing the berries with your boots made me laugh.🥾 The Rainbow appeared to let you know that you had got most of the colours in the floof that you'd got through using natural dyes.🌈🌿 Can't wait to see how you spin them. Happy Spinning and Dying Sweet Fibre Friend 🎡🐑🥰🌼 Take care and stay safe Lots of love and Big Hugs Jen xxxx ❤️❤️❤️🫂🫂🫂🐕
I’ve found that berries (I’ve only tried elder, sloe/blackthorn and blackberry) need more like 400% by weight to make a good colour because they contain so much water! I’m going to try ivy berries this year because that green is lush!
Stomping for science! Thank you for doing the long term solar dying, and for being brave enough to take out the wool even after you grew new life. I hate mold, so I couldn't have done it.
Hoi Jente! I'm wondering if changing up the process might change the results. For example, adding in some cream of tartar to your alum to assist absorption of the mordant, simmering your fibre in the dye pot rather than cool processing, or adding some vinegar or citric acid to the dye bath. Geen Nederlands vandaag, ik heb hoofdpijn. Bedankt voor de filmpje, het geeft me ideeën. Tot volgende keer dan.
It will probably change the results yes! Maybe I'll do a video one day about all the colours you can get with 1 dyestuff but all the different modifiers 🤔
nicely done. it would be interesting to see how colorfast the two mordants are over time. also, i can totally relate to the neighbors probably thinking you might be insane. my balcony is a garden/laboratory during the summer, and we joke about getting a house in the middle of nowhere, just so that i can try out some of the more... uhm, pungent... wool adventures that would get us kicked out of an apartment in the middle of the city.
We live in a rather Posh neighbourhood and my neighbours' lawns are precision cut to the milimeter... And then my garden is literally just a bunch of weeds and unruly shrubs in their eyes. Like, who lets the dandylions grow freely? Me.
Well well you chaos goblin you!! Thanks a lot! Maybe tomorrow I'll collect lots of Ivy berries from a garden I'll be visiting and make a little chaos in my own kitchen...stay tuned!!
I'm loving your videos, the calm amongst the chaos (or is it just embracing chaos?). I would also love if you could link patterns to the knitted items you wear in your videos, y'know, just to save me losing an hour on Ravelry each time!
Yay for more dye shenanigans! I was saving up onion skins to dye with in the summer, but I've just had to throw away evertying after transfering it to a bigger (but not breathable.....) bag a few weeks ago... Some unwanted greenery had started to appear in the bag... Oh well, my mom is saving up for me too, and I'll just start over (this time with a bag with holes in it)
I have been wanting to try using natural dyes for quite a while, maybe I will have to finally give it a try. I hope to have my own witchy garden at some point in my life.
Witchy gardens are quite easy: let grow what wants to grow, only weed out noxious plants. I only take out the brambles because they will otherwise take over the entire place 😅 And maybe this was a sign for you to start experimenting 😁
Love the experiments with natural dye stuffs! Would you be trying to use vinger or citric acid as a mordent in the future? Like homemade vinegar? From my studies it appears acids allow for a better take up of dyes in wool. Maybe it can take up those elusive reds that the alum and tannins are not able to? (Also more time and heat since reds and blues are just a pain in general)
I want to experiment with coloring wool and I would love to color it while it's a cloud so I could combine the different colors while spinning. But after my first attempt at natural coloring resulted in quite a lot of felting I'm scared to try that again.
less heat and less stirring is mostly the way to reduce felting. However, if you want to try a way that is a lot less scary: maybe you could try solar dyeing?
This has me wondering which colours (and saturation) could be gotten from foraged from various herbs and seeds gathered on a walk along Belgium’s countryside roads. Lichens off fallen branches picked up after a storm. Inner or outer barks gleaned off a tree that needed to be cut down or trimmed for safety reasons. Other fruits or fruit parts either saved up after eating or fallen off/foraged/picked… plant sap, leaves, etc
I think you made some fermented juice in those jars. Try it with grape skins and you'll make some dreadful wine. I have accidentally cultivated some unwanted life in a solar dyeing jar before. That was quite unfortunate. If you keep your stinky wool and end up using it, you are braver than me.
My next experiment is going to be a messy one! I’m going to try henna. Since I only have the powdered henna leaves, it’s going to take forever to wash!!! lol
@@MijnWolden Too bad I live so far away! I'd love to spend an afternoon experimenting with wool and dyes with you! A wool-dying mystery tea party I'd call it! If you've got the time, I found this mushroom-dying documentary from 1988 and it's pretty neat! th-cam.com/video/o1Dn7GsBsmU/w-d-xo.html
If dying with mushrooms do it outside a friend used some fungi didn’t know which ones in her kitchen and when her husband came home she was wondering around the house naked talking nonsense ,the best solar dying I found was on montbretia not sure what the plant 🌱 is called in Belgium.a lovely lemon yellow,but when heat dyed nothing one of those plants.I did find the purple backed clover gave a lovely pale pale purple, and did you try the ivy leaves themselves good going though,and you will be lucky to get the smell out of the others I never did on some long time solar dying experiments,had to dice the wool the smell was just too bad
I always have the door of my studio wide open whenever working with dyes, but I 'll take extra care with mushrooms 😅 I soaked the solar dyed floofs in some soapy water and the smell is not so horrible anymore. Don't know how it'll smell when processed to yarn, that might take away the soapy layer and unleash the stink again
Love the witchy experimenting!
Thank you ☺️
I dyed with ivy berries from our garden a few springs ago, and got a nice purple-y mid brown colour- it’s hard to describe… it has warm pink tones to it. And impossible to photograph it accurately! I mordanted with alum, and used rainwater. I’ve not used the yarn in a project yet. It has stayed colourfast; I think it must be 3 years now. Natural dyes from the garden can turn out quite differently, I find! 😊
It's probably also different depending on the ripeness of the berries, I wonder 🤔
"Hand shoes!" I love it. The pink and purple colors were very pretty, but you said stinky? Let us know if/when the stink goes away? Would a different or no mordant let the ivy berry color leave that pretty light purple color, I wonder? If a neighbor saw me I would say "I'm doing witchy stuff! I'm taking these berries to make dye!" Who knows, they might smile and say "Cool!" Hugs
I let them soak a bit in soapy water and most of the stink is gone now 😁
I totally want to start calling my gloves "hand shoes". That is awesome.
Do it! 😁
Oh wow, those dyed fluffs are beautiful!! Loved the rainbow too 🌈😁
Thank you ☺️
Hi Jente, I hope you're OK xx ❣️❣️❣️
Thankyou so much for sharing this video podcast.
I love your experiments, from your "witches" garden. Dying from nature is so fun to watch.
I wonder what reaction I'd get if I went into a shop and asked if they had any
"Hand shoes"
Ohh crushing the berries with your boots made me laugh.🥾
The Rainbow appeared to let you know that you had got most of the colours in the floof that you'd got through using natural dyes.🌈🌿
Can't wait to see how you spin them.
Happy Spinning and Dying Sweet Fibre Friend 🎡🐑🥰🌼
Take care and stay safe
Lots of love and Big Hugs Jen xxxx ❤️❤️❤️🫂🫂🫂🐕
Let me know how crazy the shopkeepers will think you are for asking for handshoes 😂
I’ve always liked the soft muted colors from natural dying. I definitely love a witchy garden!😉❤️
Me too, they all go together effortlessly as well! 😁
I like the part with the shoes 😉👍
Haha 😁
I’ve found that berries (I’ve only tried elder, sloe/blackthorn and blackberry) need more like 400% by weight to make a good colour because they contain so much water! I’m going to try ivy berries this year because that green is lush!
Stomping for science! Thank you for doing the long term solar dying, and for being brave enough to take out the wool even after you grew new life. I hate mold, so I couldn't have done it.
I'm fine with mold, but will run miles away if I see but one maggot.
Hoi Jente! I'm wondering if changing up the process might change the results. For example, adding in some cream of tartar to your alum to assist absorption of the mordant, simmering your fibre in the dye pot rather than cool processing, or adding some vinegar or citric acid to the dye bath. Geen Nederlands vandaag, ik heb hoofdpijn. Bedankt voor de filmpje, het geeft me ideeën. Tot volgende keer dan.
It will probably change the results yes! Maybe I'll do a video one day about all the colours you can get with 1 dyestuff but all the different modifiers 🤔
nicely done. it would be interesting to see how colorfast the two mordants are over time. also, i can totally relate to the neighbors probably thinking you might be insane. my balcony is a garden/laboratory during the summer, and we joke about getting a house in the middle of nowhere, just so that i can try out some of the more... uhm, pungent... wool adventures that would get us kicked out of an apartment in the middle of the city.
We live in a rather Posh neighbourhood and my neighbours' lawns are precision cut to the milimeter... And then my garden is literally just a bunch of weeds and unruly shrubs in their eyes. Like, who lets the dandylions grow freely? Me.
Well well you chaos goblin you!! Thanks a lot! Maybe tomorrow I'll collect lots of Ivy berries from a garden I'll be visiting and make a little chaos in my own kitchen...stay tuned!!
Oooooh let me know!
I love your videos! I just got my first wheel and I am spinning having such a wonderful time, thank you for your great tips
Happy spinning! 😁
I was in fear for those jars but tbh they turned out really cool.
(Also omg I think this is the exact scale I've grown up using...)
I got the scale from the thrift store, so maybe it ís the exact same one 😁
I'm loving your videos, the calm amongst the chaos (or is it just embracing chaos?). I would also love if you could link patterns to the knitted items you wear in your videos, y'know, just to save me losing an hour on Ravelry each time!
The structure of my brain is chaos, it's how I work best. And maybe I just like sending you on a scavenger hunt? 😅
Yay for more dye shenanigans! I was saving up onion skins to dye with in the summer, but I've just had to throw away evertying after transfering it to a bigger (but not breathable.....) bag a few weeks ago... Some unwanted greenery had started to appear in the bag... Oh well, my mom is saving up for me too, and I'll just start over (this time with a bag with holes in it)
My father in law and I use breadbags for our onionskins, they naturally breathing 😁
@@MijnWolden Thanks for the suggesion!
You can find a lot of those oak gall balls in Alsace, btw!
Then I am quite sure you recognize the Castle in the background 😉😉😉
I have been wanting to try using natural dyes for quite a while, maybe I will have to finally give it a try. I hope to have my own witchy garden at some point in my life.
Witchy gardens are quite easy: let grow what wants to grow, only weed out noxious plants. I only take out the brambles because they will otherwise take over the entire place 😅
And maybe this was a sign for you to start experimenting 😁
@@MijnWolden That's my motto, Let it grow! Lol. Maybe, I think I will give it a try.
Have you ever tried pokeberries? They make light pink to bright fuschia. I just harvested yesterday so I'm excited!
I haven't, pokeberries aren't native to western Europe, so I don't know where I'd find them.
Dank je voor je inspiratie 😍. Ga ik ook proberen. Heb vorige week met fluitenkruid en wilgentakken geverfd.
Wilgentakken zijn leuk ja! 😁
Love the experiments with natural dye stuffs! Would you be trying to use vinger or citric acid as a mordent in the future? Like homemade vinegar? From my studies it appears acids allow for a better take up of dyes in wool. Maybe it can take up those elusive reds that the alum and tannins are not able to? (Also more time and heat since reds and blues are just a pain in general)
I have heard acids to work well with chemical dyes, but not so much with natural dyes. But I need to research more!
I want to experiment with coloring wool and I would love to color it while it's a cloud so I could combine the different colors while spinning. But after my first attempt at natural coloring resulted in quite a lot of felting I'm scared to try that again.
less heat and less stirring is mostly the way to reduce felting. However, if you want to try a way that is a lot less scary: maybe you could try solar dyeing?
This has me wondering which colours (and saturation) could be gotten from foraged from various herbs and seeds gathered on a walk along Belgium’s countryside roads. Lichens off fallen branches picked up after a storm. Inner or outer barks gleaned off a tree that needed to be cut down or trimmed for safety reasons. Other fruits or fruit parts either saved up after eating or fallen off/foraged/picked… plant sap, leaves, etc
Many a colour, I am sure, however a lot will be a tint of yellow, brown or greenish
I think you made some fermented juice in those jars. Try it with grape skins and you'll make some dreadful wine. I have accidentally cultivated some unwanted life in a solar dyeing jar before. That was quite unfortunate. If you keep your stinky wool and end up using it, you are braver than me.
If added some barley I had some wool infused beer 😬
These boots are made for stomping, and that’s just what they’ll do 😂😂 I’ve never been happier
Credits to Never fight a man with a perm.
Also, where do you get your Alum? I could only find some online that was very expensive. Maybe I just don't know what to search for in Dutch...
I just searched for 'aluin' and found it rather easily. I got mine from dekruidenbaron (dot) nl.
@@MijnWolden Thank you! That helps a lot!
Wait a minute... double rainbow? :D
Rainbowception! Rainceptionbow?
Pistachio green looks better than the beige, but the gall nuts are cooler to use. Dilemmas!
Jep exactly!
My next experiment is going to be a messy one! I’m going to try henna. Since I only have the powdered henna leaves, it’s going to take forever to wash!!! lol
I'm experimenting with some new dyestuff today as well 😁
@@MijnWolden Too bad I live so far away! I'd love to spend an afternoon experimenting with wool and dyes with you! A wool-dying mystery tea party I'd call it! If you've got the time, I found this mushroom-dying documentary from 1988 and it's pretty neat! th-cam.com/video/o1Dn7GsBsmU/w-d-xo.html
Have you investigated dying with mushrooms?
Not yet, but I'm really interested in it! Been keeping my eye out for dyer's polypore, but I should get into it more
If dying with mushrooms do it outside a friend used some fungi didn’t know which ones in her kitchen and when her husband came home she was wondering around the house naked talking nonsense ,the best solar dying I found was on montbretia not sure what the plant 🌱 is called in Belgium.a lovely lemon yellow,but when heat dyed nothing one of those plants.I did find the purple backed clover gave a lovely pale pale purple, and did you try the ivy leaves themselves good going though,and you will be lucky to get the smell out of the others I never did on some long time solar dying experiments,had to dice the wool the smell was just too bad
I always have the door of my studio wide open whenever working with dyes, but I 'll take extra care with mushrooms 😅 I soaked the solar dyed floofs in some soapy water and the smell is not so horrible anymore. Don't know how it'll smell when processed to yarn, that might take away the soapy layer and unleash the stink again