Monday, September 24, 2012

Ignore Everything and Look at Pretty Yarn


Isn't this the most lovely thing you have seen?

I finally made a 'natural' green dye for yarn.

Its magnificent.

Its a celery green colour. Quite vegetal.

I made it from copper, vinegar and lots of time (about 3 months). I'm not sure what the chemical name is for this but I think its Copper Acetate. Not sure if its poisonous, so I wore gloves and rinsed the yarn very well.

The dye is actually a blue green colour but this skein is under-dyed with black tea and so was yellowish. Thus mixing blueish and yellowish I made green.


This is the copper wire soaking in vinegar about 2 months in. You can see the bright blue colour of the vinegar below and the crystals forming on the wire.


This is the copper wire after I took it out after 3 months. After this stage I soaked the wire in a little water to remove the blue from the wire. Worked really nicely.


On the left is yarn that was not under-dyed with anything, its just a natural wool colour. The finished yarn colour is much closer to blue than green.


This was my first experiment with wool in a tiny amount of the blue liquid that showed me that the colour would stick and might produce greens or blues. 

Happiness.

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