The dandelions are growing at my house. Rather than going out and digging them all up, I tried my hand at a dyeing experiment. Four ounces of wool, mordanted with alum and cream of tartar, then dyed with the liquid from boiling 9 ounces of dandelion flowers. I was thrilled with the results!I have tried dyeing with dandelion flowers before. A few years ago some neighbor boys picked a bucket full of flowers for me and I used them. Unfortunately, I didn't use any mordant, and I don't think I weighed either the fibers or the amount of flowers...the result was terribly disappointing...almost no color at all from the flowers.
This time, I made use of Wild Color by Jenny Dean. She provides "recipes" that gave amounts of mordant per fiber weight and amounts of fresh dye stuff per fiber weight. What a difference that made! Hooray for wonderful resources! Thank you Jenny Dean, and thank you beautiful dandelions!Happy Dandelion Days!
1 comment:
That's so fun! And, I must admit, it has me eyeing the dandelions in my own front yard. I don't think we have enough of them yet, though...
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