Chemical Reactions

I have been taking advantage of the lovely weather over the last couple of days - dyeing 'au naturale' in the garden. Oh I do wish that I had taken chemistry at school, it might have come in useful.

But then my education was aimed at teaching me to be a young lady whose sole purpose in life was to get married and have children - no wonder I didn't fit in and was constantly in trouble over minor things - like straight seams in stockings - why? I could never, ever get my hat to sit at the correct angle and quite honestly I couldn't have cared less. Sitting dumurely was not one of my talents - I more likely to found playing cricket with the boys!

Now playing cricket and getting to bat depended (at least in my childhood cohort) on the ability to catch the ball. Something in which I failed miserably, I couldn't throw either so potential run outs often led to several extra runs for the other side. But then one day I had a brainwave - forced to wear a horrible pink dress with large lace collar and pockets I came up with the idea of using the pockets to catch the ball!!

Seemed, to me at least, a solution to the catching problem - just hold the pocket open under the ball and voila I could be bowling or even better batting - but I hadn't allowed for the velocity of a falling ball - the pocket was torn from the dress leaving a large hole...... Consquently not only was I banned from playing cricket I was forced to mend and wear the pesky dress for the rest of the summer!

Meanwhile and back to the present it is only now when I have discovered the ways different chemicals react on wool that my interest has been re-lighted and I wish that 'young ladies' had been taught more interesting things to do with Cream of Tartar than make scones.

100 grams of logwood chips - soaked overnight to release the liquor.

















This is the resulting liquor














I had mordanted two skeins in Alum and COT, one in Copper Water and the last one was just soaked in water. The two alum and the one unmordanted skeins were simmered in the logwood liquor for 45mins and left over night to cool. The exhaust was clear.




















A second extract from the logwood chips was used to dye the skein mordanted in copper water.

Now, this copper water was started last July and by now no doubt pretty strong on copper ! Well Jenny Dean's Wild Colours says use all the copper water in your jar and top up with cold water to cover the yarn, simmer and afterwards returned the liquor to the jar containing the copper pipe for future use.

I did this and the result was surprising but predictable considering the amount of copper. The exhaust was yellow and a small skein from this came out green, which has quickly faded to grey.




















From left to right - one unmordanted skein , two skeins mordanted in alum, and the copper mordanted skein.






















This is 5th skein which has now lost the green!