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Carol Leigh's HILLCREEK FIBER STUDIO
Using Dyes & Dye Aides
Madder Root Red on Cotton and WoolThe historic "Turkey Red" recipe isdefinitely the best natural, rich, lasting red dye for cotton. Turkey Red's mainingredient is Madder Root. It is, however, quite the challenge even for experienced dyers,as it has so many steps.Gösta Sandberg in his book, "The Red Dyes, Cochineal, Madder,and Murex Purple, a World Tour of Textile Techniques", summarizes the processinto 10 major operations, each one broken into many steps of precision. Paraphrased, theTurkey Red recipe steps include: thorough scouring of the cotton, soaking in a "dungbath" of sheep dung and olive oil three times, wringing out and drying between eachdung dip, mordanting in a "white bath" of potash in a wooden vessel three times,drying in between each mordant bath, rinsing in river water, then "gallering"(treating with tannin and sumac), then mordanting with alum and potash for 12 hours,thoroughly drying for several days, then "maddering" (dyeing with madder andchalk in copper kettle) until the color is "beautiful and lively", then set in atin bath, then washed in a soap solution containing olive, peanut, and palm core oilwhipped into a lather, then rinsed and dried in the shade. Whew!
Jim Liles, in his book "Art and Craft of the NaturalDyer", explains the steps well, and has reduced the historic time for producingit (approximately 3 months) to "just" 3 weeks, and he uses some modern daysubstitutes for some of the ingredients (no dung). But there are still many steps.
As an alternative, you can get a fairly good Madder Root Red on cotton,wool or other protein or cellulose fibers. You may dye your natural fibers in any form:fabric, yarns, loose fibers, basket reed, et cetera. Thoroughly wash your wool, or scouryour cotton or other material. (We carry a cotton "scour" liquid from MichelleWipplinger). Then mordant the cotton or other cellulose fibers with Alum Acetate or usethe Potasium alum plus Soda ash recipe following. For wool, mordant with Potasium alumwithout the Soda ash. (For this recipe, do not add cream of tartar with the alum, as iscommonly done for wool.)
Meanwhile, the madder root contains both red and yellow dyes, and theyellow is more readily soluble in water, so it comes off first. The Alizarin chemical inmadder which yields the red is not readily soluble, so it takes a little longer toretrieve.
I recommend putting the ground roots in a muslin bag and letting themsoak overnight. Then bring the bath to simmer (don't boil madder, or reds will turnbrown), and steep for an hour. Pour off this liquid. It will be orange. Cover the bag ofmadder root again with cold water and simmer again for one hour. Pour off liquid. You cansave these initial pourings for orange colors. By the third or fourth bath you'll bepulling more reds.
I leave the bag of ground roots in the bath with the fibers, but you doneed to stir more frequently if you do this, or you may have splotches on the fabric. (Onlocks of wool, this is okay, as it will all be carded together anyway.) Bring the bath upto simmer with the fibers in and hold it around 160 degrees F for an hour and a half. Thengradually increase the temp up to 190 degrees F for 30 minutes. Let the fibers cool in thebath or over night.
Remove the fibers from the dye bath. I like to let the dyed fibers airout or dry first. This seems to set the colors better. Then madder root-dyed fibers lovean alkaline washing to brighten and deepen the reds. Use an alkaline soap or a little lyein the wash water. Then rinse well and dry.
Have fun!
Mordanting processes for cotton and othercellulose fibers
Mordanting cotton or linen with potasium alum requires a 4 to 1 ratioof fiber to alum, plus a 4 to 1 ratio of alum to soda ash. In other words, for one poundof cellulose fiber, thoroughly scoured, use 4 ounces alum & 1 ounce soda ash. Simmerfiber in the mordant bath, with both ingredients, for one hour, stirring occasionally. Letcool in the bath over night. Thoroughly rinse in the morning, then dry and store untilready to dye, or dye immediately.
For the Alum/Tannin/Alum mordanting process (some dyes work better withthis three-step process for cotton -- it chemically opens up more bonding sites for thedye to attach to): Do the above alum recipe the first day. The second day simmer one ounceof tannic acid (dissolved first in hot water) with cotton for one hour, stirringfrequently, as the tannin can streak, then let cool over night. Third day thoroughly rinseout fibers, then repeat fist day's recipe with a fresh bath of alum and soda ash. Fourthday thoroughly rinse, then you are ready to dye.
This sounds like a long process, but it really doesn't take much timeeach day, and it does hold onto the color much better for dyes on cotton.
Non-fading Pokeberry Recipe
Recently there was a thread on one of the fiber lists on using pokeberriesas a dye, and on whether or not pokeberry colors fade. My response was basically that itdepends on how acetic the dye bath was. Following that, I received personal requests formore clarification and actual recipes. Feeling this may be of general interest, we'veadded the recipe here.
There are so many surprizes with pokeberry. I've been experimenting with it for 18 years.I even prepared an interesting University research project as part of my masters program,taking berries from three different soils, and using three different water sources, andpremordanting in various mineral salts, to try to determine various effects on the color.(Why would copper turn the color to buff yellow? Why do the mineral salts seem to"cause" the color to fade?) Still many unanswered questions.
Pokeberry colors range from bright fushia to magenta to raspberry, and will last forseveral years by following the below recipe. Three factors seem to greatly effect thecolor and color retention: the concentration of dyestuff to fiber, and the degree ofacidity of the mordant and dye baths, and the length of time fibers remain in each step ofthe process.
I don't take accurate measurements when dyeing with native plants, but I'll estimate foryou. The proportion of dyestuff to fiber is critical. I find the higher the ratio ofpokeberries to fibers, the more color-fast. I never weigh pokeberries, so don't know whata bucket of pokeberries weighs, but would estimate one-to-two gallons of berries (off thestems and crushed) to 8 ounces of fiber would be good. Try 4 oz. of 56% acetic acid toenough water to comfortably float the fibers (about 1.5 to 2 gallons). Thoroughly wash andrinse the fibers, while damp enter fibers into acid water, bring to a high simmer (180-190degrees F) for two hours and leave over night to cool in bath. Meanwhile add acid water tothe crushed pokeberries, steep for 30 minutes (don't get temp too high or you may loosethe brilliant red), then let cool overnight. Next day strain the seeds from the dyebath.Remove the fibers from acid ath. Combine the dyebath and the left over acid bath and putthe fibers back in. Then cook at a medium high temp (160-180 degree F) for two hours.Leave fibers in bath for several hours or over night. Remove fibers, squeeze and lay outon screens in shade for couple hours to oxydize. Then thoroughly rinse off excess dye (donot use soap or anything alkaline) and dry.
Over-dyeing skeins and raw silk fabric in indigo, once the pokeberry is set, will givepurples (surprise, as indigo is alkaline!) Once I dyed a skeing of wool first inpokeberries, then in indigo, for one of the most beautiful purples I'd ever seen. Then,being very tired, and very much a pokeberry-dyeing novice, left the skein in a bowl ofwarm water and Dawn dishwashing liquid overnight! The next morning the skein had turnedsage green!! Another time I dyed locks of wool first in pokeberries (with weaker vinegar)then in indigo, and after rinsing, had the most unusual colors on each lock. The alkalineof the indigo seemed to effect only part of the pokeberry dye. There was red, blue, greenand purple, all on the same locks of wool! I'm sure the way the cut end and tip ends oflocks takes dyes differently, had a lot to do with the variations! While doing two-dayhistoric dye demonstrations, I always noted that the pokeberry colors, even WITHpostmordant mineral salts, hich were left in the dye baths overnight were always darkerand more color-fast than colors allowed in the bath for only the usual hour or so.
However, the best color, and color retention, was discovered toward the end of a dyeworkshop with author and dye master Jim Lyles at the Campbell Folk School in 1995. Afellow student, Jeri Forkner, and I couldn't resist picking buckets of pokeberries afterdark on the evening before the last day of class. We set up the dye baths late at night,and, having run out of vinegar, dumped in some 56% acetic acid and left the dye bath, andfibers in the mordant bath, overnight. The bright magenta colors on the wool skeins andraw silk fabric samples were impressive, even to Dr. Lyles. And to this day, years later,there's no sign of fading, whereas a similar skein, mordanted in vinegar only, is showingsigns of yellowing.
Pokeberry is my favorite dye plant. My favorite color. A graceful shrub. And we EAT thetender poke leaves/stalk when it first comes up in the spring. Tastes JUST likeasparagus!! It took a couple years to convince my husband not to remove every pokeberryvolunteer sprouting up in our back yard. But now, we encourage every one-- even in ourvegetable garden. They always surround our compost pile (where the seeds are dumpedfollowing workshops.) It is such an honored plant, we use it as part of our company logo.Hope you learn to enjoy it as much as I.
Back toBasics, Naturally,
Carol Leigh
CarolLeigh@HillcreekFiberStudio.com
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