Dyeing with beetroot

I am really happy with how my beetroot hand dyeing experiment went. It produced a really variegated range of colours from mushroom to pumpkin. I can't wait to knit it into something.

I followed the same method as mentioned in the post below.

I used one tablespoon of alum, as a pre-mordant, with two medium sized beetroots, grated, and about four cups of water, which produced enough dye for one 200gm hanks.

Dyeing wool hand knitting yarn with wild raspberry and mulberry leaves

I was planning on using mulberries for my first dyeing experiment, but when I went out to harvest some, the bush was bare. Then I noticed a wild raspberry bush and decided it would have to do. The raspberries don't stain your fingers they way mulberries do, so I wasn't expecting great results. I picked mulberry leaves to use as a contrast colour. And while the colours I achieved were pastel rather than vibrant, the result was a lovely multi-toned hank.

Here is what to do:

• Tie off your hanks. Tie your hank with wool in four places, this will stop the hank from becoming knotty during the dyeing process.
• Soak hanks in a bucket of luke warm water with alum. Use one tablespoon of alum per 200gm hank. Dissolve the alum in a cup of hot water before adding it to the bucket. Alum is a chemical compound which is used in cooking. It is one of the few mordants which are not a poison. It can be disposed of by pouring it into the garden, and for all these reasons it is the perfect choice for hand dyeing wool, especially if children are going to be wearing the finished product.
  
• Mash up your ingredients in a blender with water or chop by hand - the mushier, the better, because it lets the colour release more quickly. If you are using a 200gm hank, use at least the same weight of ingredients, although the more ingredients you use the deeper the colour.
  
• Boil your ingredients, separately, in water. You are boiling out the colour and the liquid will become your dye. Within an hour most plants will have released as much colour as they can.
  
• Strain the pulp from the dye. I used a piece of muslin inside a colander inside a mixing bowl. Once the pulp has cooled down, you can wrap it in the muslin and wring out extra dye.
  
• Remove hank from the soaking bucket and wring it out, then place it into a baking dish - use a dish into which the hank fits snugly.

• Pour your dyes directly onto the hank so it is covered in dye and wet with colour. Pour one colour onto one end of the hank and the other colour onto the opposite end, this will help stop the colours blending into one muddy colour. Cover the dish with aluminium foil and put in the oven. The objective is to steam rather than boil the hank, this will reduce felting and will also keep the colours from blending together too much. Set the temperature to 220 degrees Celsius (Fahrenheit 430). Remove from the oven once it reaches boiling point. It doesn't matter if it boils a little, but it is better to try and get it out of the oven just as it reaches boiling point.

• Once the hanks have cooled, wring them out and hang in the shade to dry, this will probably take a day or two, depending on the weather.

Notes: The mordant can be added at any stage -pre-mordant, co-mordant and post-mordant - and can alter the final colour, so it is worth experimenting to see what can be achieved.