Dyeing with Sumac || Natural Dye Experiment on a Victorian (ish) Dress
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ม.ค. 2021
- Sumac leaves are high in tannins, which means when combined with Iron they can produce dyes ranging from grey to purple. Here’s an experiment in overdyeing a blue dress with Staghorn Sumac.
Some technical notes
-I didn’t measure, but I was probably using between 5-10%WOF in dry sumac leaves.
-I used leaves so I wouldn’t harm the plants, but other parts of the plant supposedly work too.
-The table cloth was not alum mordanted. An additional mordant does seem key to getting grey but, upon reflection, I don’t know if adding it before or after the tannin makes a difference.
-I used iron acetate because it’s what I had, and not due to a preference over iron sulphate.
Resources
There are lots of step-by-step tutorials for iron-tannin dyes to get you started. Here is one: www.instructables.com/Black-I...
The general formula of this dye is standard in old household dye recipes. Here is more complicated tannin-iron recipe from the Workwoman's Guide (1838) that also involves logwood and peepee: archive.org/stream/workwomans...
Here is a whole chapter on various black and brown tannin (“astringent”) dyes from a 1874 manual, including species of Sumac: play.google.com/books/reader?...
Music for this video
Bach's Partita for Solo Violin No. 2, BWV 1004, Gigue [Guitar arr.] performed by Aaron Prillaman
Fugue No.16, Prelude No.16, Fugue No.13, rom Bach's Well-tempered Clavier performed by Kimiko Ishizaka
Bach's Aria Variata in A minor, BWV 989, Variation no. 1 performed by Brendan Kinsella
Acknowledgements
I got my inspiration to use Staghorn Sumac from the knowledge that other species of Sumac are used as a dye all over the world.
I also found a couple youtube videos using this species as a dye. The results they get are quite different, so do check them out!
• Natural yarn dyeing. S...
• Sumac Dye | Last Minut...
Since other species of Sumac are used by various Indigenous groups across North America, I wouldn’t doubt that the local use of this plant by contemporary dyers comes from roots in Indigenous practices. If you have information on this, I’d love to know so I can give credit where credit is due.
Thanks for watching!
Back in the 80's my Mum tried dying and spinning and weaving a sheep fleece that she died with sumac. (pretty sure they found the supply beside a highway exit). I think I remember her using the cornflower for a yellow hew.
The dress is lovely. And the cartridge pleats are, like, you know, everything.
- Cathy (&, accidently, Steve), Ottawa/Bytown
That's so cool! Thanks for sharing that. I've heard a lot of reference to different sumac species being used for dye, but not too too much about staghorn sumac being used locally (I'm in montreal).
Thank you! Very helpful
Thanks. Very interesting
Awesome, I learned so much from this video. Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you, this is very informative. I've been thinking of expanding my foraging for food and medicinal plant to finding natural dyes.
I like the frozen bucket & frozen fabric on the stair rail. so Canadian.
I used to dye cotton velour with onion skins to make tiny teddy bears. I got rich caramel colours.
I watched this after several others, and thought it was very interesting as well as having delightful music.. well done! I used to dye many different fibers and am looking forward to having a better work spot to get back to it! Thank you!
Enjoyed your video very much. I've been learning about natural dyes for about 40 years now, and have never used Sumac before, but a friend gave me some on Friday, so watching a few vids this morning. One of them said to use a weight ratio of dye stuff to fabric of 15:1 to get good good colour! I normally do 2:1 for most things. Love that shade of grey!!
That was fun. Your much braver than I all my dieing projects involve driving up to the Ottawa area to a friends! She has equipment and would know what the heck I was trying to do. Someone should always know what I’m up to!
Great information & entertaining!
I liked very much your explaining each step and what each ingredient does. I have something I want to dye (I want to dye!) & knew I'd need to do it on the stove but ha b e put it off. I feel ready to do it now and will watch this video again to get everything firmly in my mind first.
Thank you! 🍀
Thank you, very informative and really interesting. What a lovely colour you achieved. Looking forward to your future videos 🙂
I recently made some iron acetate solution to fertilize some plants and tested it by mixing a bit with some tea. It turned very black. FYI, it's possible to push a lot more iron into solution if you use electricity to oxidize it. My solution is visibly green rather than clear.
I think that was a fairly dramatic change! It looks very much 'saddened' as I think the word is for using iron to dull bright colors down. And for a thrift store flannel sheet it's Amazing! :) Probably fairly warm too!
Dry interesting. However, I preferred the bright blue dress!
I use dandelion tea to color some of my soaps a lovely buttery yellow.
Indigo, madder root, rhubarb root powder.
😂😂😂I was thinking look at those cartridge pleats when you said, “look at my cartridge pleats”. They are lovely. I’ve done a fair bit of dyeing and it always makes me think of how much time and effort it used to take to make your fiber a different color. The spinning and weaving had to be done to had to be done to have cloth or yarn but the dying was just for aesthetics. FYI: it always takes a LOT more natural plant material than the formulas call for. Please keep posting. I love your videos. I can’t wait to see what you do with the fish skins.
truly, the amount of time and effort throughout history that has gone into making stuff look cool is awe inspiring. Thanks for the pointer re: plant material - my best results have always come when I've had a "go for broke" approach when I'm dumping stuff into a dye pot.
The fish skin video is what is currently brewing!....slowly.. :)
damn, if i had known all this stuff when i lived in the woods i would have been so cool
I mean, living in the woods is pretty cool already so....you probably were? haha
I’ve done the mordant both ways without much difference. What kind of alum are you using? Alum acetate is good for linen and cotton. Gold star for perseverance!⭐️
I am using potassium alum. Thanks for that info! (I am so NOT a scientific dyer with a book of swatches, so I take all the advice from others I can get.)