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natural hibiscus dye on a skein of wool!!! loooooook at the coloooooor 🥰 it also smells like rosa jamaica (the drink) which is a pleasant surprise
I had initially dyed this skein with blackberry dye but since I had also eaten most of the blackberries, it wasn’t a very deep dye and so I just over dyed it with hibiscus . I simmered that pot of hibiscus for hours and reduced as much as possible and I am very very happy I spent that time, it was worth it to get this color result !
One of my favorite ways to store fiber.....in upcycled tennis ball tubes. Keeps it safe from moths, bugs, and fur. It is also super easy to keep the tag with it and see what's inside. I just wish I had more than 2 of these tubes.
Image 1 / left image : 2 clear tennis ball tubes filled with spinning fiber on tan carpet. The left tube has a label tapped around the middle of the tube. The labeled tube had bright greens, yellow, and dark blue fiber. The right tube is unlabeled and has dark browns, tans, muted greens, and dark teals.
Image 2 / right image : Showing a close up of the tubes, and were the fiber label is tapped to the upper tube.
Part two of hibiscus dye!!! The jar on the left has some alum (to test out what that does to the fiber/dye) and the jar on the right is just dye, no mordants or fixatives.
I’m doing a method while I cobble together bits of information from different sources. Unfortunately I can’t find any true sources focusing solely on hibiscus dye, and what I can find seems to say that they get incredibly light pink colors (aka barely any pigment) or even blue green ish, rather than my yarn’s vibrant magenta, which has not been my experience at all.
So anyway, I boil my dried flowers in a pot, reduce as much as possible, and then pour the hot dye into the jar with pre-wet yarn (no mordants used). I close the jars tightly so they can boil or steam themselves however it goes, and then I take them outside! I’ve seen this called solar dye, but essentially I put them in a sunny spot and leave them there for 24 hours, overnight and all. Could probably leave them longer but I get impatient and want to see the colors hehehe.
I squeeze out as much liquid as possible, then let them drip dry in my shower with ventilation. Lol, my tub is a little bit pinkish now, I have to say, hibiscus loves to stain. Planning to let them sit for a while before washing them out, maybe with a bit of gentle Soak soap too.
So that’s my process! Apparently hibiscus takes to animal fiber incredibly easily with no mordants needed, which has also been my experience so far too. I did want to experiment a bit with a mordant anyway just to say that I had, and there is a minute difference in the color I can see in the jars, which doesn’t seem to be as deep a color as the non mordant jar. However, it was also from the second dye bath from the same batch of boiled flowers, which could be a weaker dye anyway. This is the alpaca fiber by the way! Excited for some pretty pink alpaca yarn!!!!
Bubbly barbie pink spiral flame yarn !!!! I think this one came out so fun!!!! I used some yarn that you may recognize from my dye day post, that pink silk with variance in tone.
#WeMakeYarn day 15: A question I have
How do you spin colorful batts to get beautiful yarn? I have several red, black and white alpaca batts and sampled the first to get this cool yarn, but I feel it could have been better. I guess that’s why I prefer spinning from my handcarded rolags or handdyed clouds.
#WeMakeYarn Day 14: Drive
I prefer spinning singles in double drive and often ply in single drive with scotch tension. I'm fascinated at how sensitive the tuning can be in double drive especially when cross-lacing is added!
Hand dyed green alpaca cross laced on Beethoven!
Just a bit of dyeing, though I KNOW I've spun this. Don't think I've taken a shot of the result, though. I really love how it came out, though.
Just a dyed top to share today. All I can think of is a Fruit Cocktail when I think of this one...
