Sunday, April 24, 2016

Solar dyeing revisited

It's a month since I tried solar dyeing of wool using my black/purple pansies.  Here are the results!
 The jar with the frozen flowers is on the left.  You can see that the colour didn't penetrate all through the wool with the fresh flowers on the right.
 That jar also developed a bit of mould on top, though it didn't affect the results.
Here are the 2 skeins out drying.  I was expecting more of a purple shade, but it's come out a lovely blue.  Clearly, frozen flowers work better, so I'll use those in future.

If you want to try this, add your skein to a 1 litre glass jar.  Mix hot water with 2 heaped teaspoons of alum and 1 teaspoon cream of tartar. Leave in a sunny position.