I decided to do some dying with black
beans. Why? Because if Woman With Wings can do it, so can I. Here is
her blog address for this and other interesting adventures. Search
for Black Bean Monday.
Woman with Wings soaked her dried black
beans for 24 hours in water, and her animal fibres in an alum mordant
for 18 hours. For her plant based fibres, she soaked them in soymilk
and water for 18 hours.
Naturally, I didn't follow
instructions, but they were a bit vague anyways. My excuse this time
is that I had a concussion and following instructions was a
challenge.
I filled my dye pot about 1/4 full. It has been used
with commercial dyes in the past, so I did not keep the beans for a
soup or stew as Woman With Wings suggested. I chucked them in the
city compost. I soaked the beans in front of the fireplace while the fire
was going for a total of 12 hours and at room temperature for a
further 10-ish hours.
Into the pot went 3 cups of the water
from the beans, with 2 cups held in reserve for the cottons. I did
not dilute the bean water. I scooped two skeins of wool over from it's soaking
bath, and then brought the two up to med/hi. Everything was stirred several times. Once it reached the
state of 'ouch', I reduced it to minimum and let it simmer for an
hour with a few stirrings.
I decided to let the combination of
wool and water cool to room temperature while I searched my memory on
what happens with the bottle of vinegar that I knew I needed to use. I put two more skeins of the natural coloured yarn into the slightly exhausted dye bath. One skein was sort of squished down, with bits left to float while the second skein was dipped into the bath and allowed to float on top of the lower skein. A vinegar bath later and these are the results.
In real life the darker two are a sort of indigo grey, the middle skein is headed towards a bright indigo and the lightest skein is disappointing. It is dyed just enough to be neither a clean cream nor a light blue or grey. More as if it had been dropped in the ashes.
Because the last skein disappointed me, I decided to go a bit further. Woman with Wings makes a reference to dying with soy milk as a mordant. I couldn't find any details about it, it will be my next foray into excitement, but in the meantime I plunged the lightest skein into 200 ml of soy milk and water, let it soak over night. As well a bowl of 1 cup of beans was soaking. I redid the dying process. The top right ball is the soymilk + alum + vinegar + black bean result. It is a softer grey and looks a little more deliberate than dirty.
I am nicely surprised by the results and think it is worth buying another bag of dried black beans to do again. By then, I hope to have found better information on the soy milk as mordant process.
My soy milk as mordant research has led me so far to this, if any of you want to continue along the path before I get to it.
Talk about methodical ! Turkey Red
Journal has all sorts of numbers and consistency going on there. And
good photographs. It is very inspirational, especially if you like measuring things.
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