**Fiber Femmes Travel Adventure**
Fiber Femmes Favorite Fiber Fellow
Paper!
Femme Focus: Laura Murphy
Nihon Amimono by Caryn Ackerman
So What? About Paper by Laura Murphy
"Ethical" Issues with Wool? by Grace Hatton
Organic or Humane by Grace Hatton
Snake River Fiber Fair by by Kat LeFevre and Karen Phoenix
The San Luis Valley Folk Arts and Fiber Festival by Laura Lunsford
Mosiacs Yarn Shop, Blacksburg, Virginia
Anemone Gaiter and Hat: Pattern by Kat LeFevre
Lacy Beret: Pattern by Aida Costa
Lexisock for Girls!: Pattern by Charissa Clark Howe
Lucky Sister Sock: Pattern by Charissa Clark Howe
A Dandy Little Bootie: Pattern by Vicki (DandyLion)
and much more!
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Labels: Daily Life, Projects, Work
Madder roots, depending upon the mordant, will give pink or red with all hues in between. In times past, a chamber pot was kept in the cabin or house and used for urination on cold winter nights. More solid matter meant a trip to the outhouse, no matter the temps.
I've heard it said the outhouse was always 200 yards too close in the summer and 200 yards too far in the winter. At any rate, turkey red was obtained by using madder root and urine as a mordant. For our purposes, we used alum and ammonia. Thank God we live in a time of indoor plumbing and central heat! The madder was put on to soak and then boiled to obtain color and, when we're finished, water will be added to the pot and more dye soaked from the roots.
Osage orange is also 
known as Bois d'arc or hedgeapple and doesn't need a mordant. Sawdust, wood chips or bark may be used and we used saw dust from an accommodating wood worker. The sawdust was placed into panty hose and boiled in water until the color began to release and then soaked.
Walnuts were hand torn to open up the outer, green husk. We used two dye baths of walnuts...on
e bucket of walnuts had soaked for six weeks and another for two weeks. There's a discernable difference in the two and, naturally, the six week old bucket, in this photo, gave the darkest dye.
For fun, I also mixed up some Jacquard dyes, an acid dye that's safe to use both for humans, animals and the environment.
TC, one of the house cats, doesn't enjoy dye day. She'd much rather the humans be seated because it's only when we're seated is she able to have a warm lap. Dyeing takes
place in the kitchen and on the back porch. I have a big ole country stove with seven burners but find the huge pots take up so much room, it's best to use the gas grill outside. Plus, when those spill accidents happen, it's best they happen on the back porch; keeps peace in the family, doncha know?
This pot has fleece soaking in Osage Orange water, a lovely, golden warm color.
These skeins of yarn are soaking in madder root
and these are soaking in Jacquard sapphire blue dye.
The final two pots are walnut, 
soaked for two weeks and the yarn looks almost coffee or tea stained. Whereas the bottom pot of walnuts soaked for about six weeks and the difference is remarkable. The longer the walnuts soak, the darker and richer the color and walnuts have a natural mordant so, really, no additional mordant is needed. But, if alum or cream of tartar or ammonia mordant is used, the yarn will become a dark, rich, roasted coffee bean brown because it soaks up more of the dye. Needless to say, I prefer using additional mordant 
as I prefer the deeper, darker browns.
Photos of the finished dyed yarn will have to wait...the yarn is still drip drying as some of it has been soaking in the dye water for a couple of days. You'll have to trust me when I say the colors are lovely...at least until the next day or two when I can take photos.
Dye day was loads of fun, Linda is a great apprentice and we laughed and worked the day away. We've still got to gather sumac berries/fruit to use on our next dye day. That will *have* to be done outdoors as the sumac fruit can cause horrible allergic reactions and, as winter is coming on, it will have to be done when there's a window of warmth...when the temps are above freezing. I've also got some fungi so the next dye day will be weird day as well.