Knitpicks Sock Blank and Dye Plants

After following the Knitpicks sock blank knit-alongs and dye-alongs  I decided to try one myself using dye plants. 

Knitpicks sock blank. Starting with an overnight soak and standard Alum bath.

Start with Oxylas. The sock blank soaked up the dye incredibly well. I underestimated the wicking effect and lost the white spots.  For the next one it mgiht be interesting to try with some dry areas.

Overdye with Maddar.

Some ‘saddening’ with Iron and Copper to tone down the yellow.

Last the Indigo overdye.

 

I am a total convert to the Magic Loop method of sock knitting but have never tried two at once or toe up. The pattern is good but I was somewhat confused at the beginning. Once over that hurddle I think the rest will be fairly straight forward.

 

 

woad and fennel

Around the time that the Oxalis was dying off the Fennel seemed to take off. It looks like I won’t be scavenging the Smart-&-Final parking lot or sides of freeways for Fennel this year. The backyard stand - now too large to be called a shrub - is producing enough to keep me in dye and local insects in food.

Also here, my first attempt at growing Woad. There are 2 plants, still in pots. One seems to have some Sweet Basil growing along side – probably from some other planting. They are about 6” across right now. I’m not sure how fast these grow but it is unlikely there will be blue dye until next season.

Dried Oxalis, tare function and other good things

I tend to work with dried dye plant material rather than fresh.  My gardening space is on the small side. Even with ‘weeds’ I rarely have enough fresh material so I’ve been concentrating on plants I can dry and save up over time.

Red and blue aren’t a problem because I can purchase Madder and Indigo already dried. Onion peels (yellow to orange and rust) are dry and easy to store. Usually its the yellows that need some planning. Fennel is my local dryable yellow for wool and Oxalis for cotton (although it works on wool too). The dye books I’ve been reading tend to discuss the plant to dye stuff radio in terms of fresh dye material, often 1:1 (dye material:fiber) or in the case of cotton as much as 2:1 (dye material:fiber). The weight drops quite a bit in the drying so I did some before and after weighing to get a better idea of how much to use.

The dried Oxalis seems to be about 12% of the fresh. Which means 1:1, 2:1 or anything like that is way too much dye material.

   Fresh material weighed .9 oz or 25 g

   Dried material weighed .1 oz or 3 gm.

For a long time I’ve used my trusty triple beam scale for measuring dye material. This had been given to me by my father. He always used a triple beam scale for measuring ceramic glaze chemicals and it was one of those things he thought I should know how to use correctly, along with tire changing and other useful stuff. 

Recently I got my first digital scale. Obviously it must take very little to make me happy. I love the push-button tare function. (Way easier than zeroing out my old standard.) Also being able to switch between metric and that other thing by pushing a button. Even the cats like it.

Oxalis and (mostly cotton) dye test

 

(before and after)

Cotton samples, 50% and 25% DRIED plant to fiber, and then on the far right extra samples tossed into the 50% and 25% dye soup to exhaust the dye. The extra samples (in order) were wool, soy silk and cotton.

So far my most successful cotton processing has been derived from Jill Goodwin’s “A Dyer’s Manual” – a book both beautiful and useful.

Jill Goodwin method: soak the cotton at least an hour (overnight in this case); “mordant 8 oz of cotton, dissolve 2 oz of alum (60 grams) and half an oz (4 tsp or 20 ml) of washing soda in a pot of boiling water” – ok ounces make my head ache, I use metric for dye work so I calculated this to alum 25% (.25 x weight of fiber) and washing soda 6% (.06 x weight of fiber); boil cotton in alum and washing soda for half an hour, stir occasionally.  

I simmered the dried oxalis (contained in a pantyhose foot) and the cotton for about an hour and cooled overnight, around 24 hours.

Goodwin suggests that you use 2x the weight of the material to be dyed. however I have found that dried dye material is quite a bit stronger (concentrated?) then fresh.  The color on the photo I have posted here is definately not perfect but gives a general idea of the color. The fiber is darker in the dye liquid but even after the washout I had a decent medium and deep yellow. I plan to try a 10% for a lighter yellow.

The surprise was the amount of color left in the dye liquid that was picked up by the wool, soy silk and 2^nd cotton samples. The light yellow samples I will probably over dye with indigo.

Oxalis and bees

In the area of Southern California where I live, Oxalis is one of those frighteningly hearty and unstoppable plants that appear wanted or not. On the positive side, this is one of the few local plants I've found that works well on cotton and produces a nice bright yellow. (Samples on the way). And the bees really seem to enjoy it.

The Oxalis reappeared this year around late November. Generally as soon as it shows up I start picking and drying it (paper bag hanging in the hall near our floor heater vent) so there is enough on hand for a decent dye bath.

Oxalis fresh, and dried.

Dye plant collection and gathering

Since all the books I have that relate to dye plants cover guidelines for gathering I should probably mention the subject here.

From Dyeing with natural materials (Los Aravas Spinners and Weavers Guild, Inc):

When gathering dye plant materials, please remember the importance of seeking permission when gathering on other than your own property. Sources for plant material other than from garden or field might include nursery beds, botanical gardens for the really unusual, or the grocery store. It is always wise to think about the environment when collecting material for your dye pot. Some of the Southwests ecology zones are very fragile and need a long recovery period. We all need to help ensure that local plant populations do not become extinct due to over collection. The recipes we have included here do not utilize any plants that are listed as sensitive species by the U.S. Forest Service. p.6

Ive concentrated on plants that are often considered weeds, are in my backyard, and ones that are going to be mowed down or tossed out. Roadside Fennel (by the freeway, along the road in Topanga Canyon), Oxalis, etc are extremely hardy although I do think it is a good habit to cultivate of leaving enough for the plant to recover and reseed itself. Ironically Ive noticed the best patches of Fennel are often on the most pedestrian inaccessible sides of the Pacific Coast Highway and reaching them would require sprinting across multiple lanes of traffic. Don't do that either.

So with this in mind, one should avoid trespassing, being mowed down by oncoming traffic (while trying to get to the perfect stand of what-ever, picking anything endangered and over picking in general. Since most dye plants involve a significant ratio of plant to fiber it doesn't hurt to use stuff that will be tossed out, among my favorites are onion peels (yellow to orange), eucalyptus leaves piling up on the car (sort of red), lawn grass (yellow to green), etc.