Remember the really pretty tatting I dipped in the walnut dye? I wanted it darker, began doing some research and learned about iron water. We have plenty of rusty nails around here, so soaking them in a jar with vinegar and water was not a complicated process.
I had attempted some rust dyeing in the past with less than spectacular results. But I hadn’t mixed iron water with the walnut dyed fabric.
Below are images from baths in the iron water only, and some things dyed in walnut dye, then iron water.
Before: this is a bit of linen sheet and some old tatting previously dyed in indigo, some old tatting not yet dyed.
After: those same pieces after a bath in iron water only…no walnut on these pieces.
It’s always a delight to see how different threads take the dye differently. The monogram on this linen towel is stitched with cotton thread. The linen towel was only in the walnut dye, the tatting was in walnut dye, then iron water.
Here are the two sides of a bit of a damask tablecloth. These were soaked in the walnut dye a few days, then dipped in the iron water.
This linen towel shows how powerful the iron water is combined with walnut. This whole piece was not in the iron bath, just the walnut…but the residue on my gloves made these splotches. I find the spots interesting, not offensive.
The top doily here was dyed with walnuts, then composted. It was unintentional composting…as I was rinsing these new pieces, I discovered the doily in the leaves – left there from the earlier walnut dyeing day.
I am very pleased with the results of this combo…soaking in the walnut dye, then dipping in the iron water. Lesson learned: make more iron water. I had experimented with a small quantity, so only small pieces resulted from this trial. But more, more, more, to come….
This is the featured photo on the website, but for those who just read the email version, you would miss this….I always think I need to mix browns with blue, you know….but maybe some with green, too.
The recent blog post on walnut dyeing is here…if you missed it or want to refresh your memory on the before and after images from only a walnut bath.
One of the things I do in the fall is collect acorns. Every year I find myself coming home with a few perfect specimens after every day’s walk. I add them to this bowl…eventually it is filled and I admire it through the winter. In the spring, I throw them out. In the fall, I begin again.
I don’t know exactly what the fascination is with acorns. I grew up with pecan trees. I gathered plenty of those in my childhood. That was the source of my Christmas money every year. Oaks and acorns came later in my life….
I’m still collecting acorns this year…but my latest fascination is with walnuts.
A few years ago, I attended a Folk Life Festival at a historic site in Tifton, GA. Among the many delights there was a woman using walnut and indigo dyes to make the most beautiful yarn. I was captivated. From her I learned that walnut doesn’t need a mordant; that you collect the walnuts while in the green hulls; that they must ferment first, then be boiled before you can dye with them.
I followed those instructions and dipped a few things, but it was a lot of trouble.
I’ve experimented with brown commercial dyes before (that post is here) but the walnut gives a more pleasing color to me. I love the surprise of the varying richness based on the fabrics I use and the time it soaks.
This year, I gathered some black walnuts in their husks, put them in a bucket of water, covered it, and began the fermenting process. After a couple of days, I thought, “I wonder what would happen if I dipped a piece of fabric in there as they fermented.” A friend had brought me a pretty white cotton napkin and I submerged it among the walnuts. In a few days, I had a nice bit of brown fabric.
I found another napkin, damask this time, and some laces…added those to the bucket for a few days. Look at how gorgeous these are!
I had a few pieces of vintage linen that I wanted to see what happened. So I cut a few pieces of those, added a worn white cotton tea towel, and a skein of white embroidery floss. I left these just a couple of days…not wanting to completely obscure the checked pattern in the linens. Oh, my, I’m loving this!
The images above are before and after of dipped fabrics.
And of course you aren’t surprised that I photographed some of the browns with some blues. Earlier confessions of my love for this color combination are here and here. And, if that’s not enough, type “brown” in the search bar…there are more!
Now in the pot are a few more treasures. I don’t remember exactly what I put in there, but do know that some old pink rickrack is getting new life. Stay tuned.
And there are a lot of hickory nuts around here, too. Hmmmm….
As I wrote this and revisited the photos from the Folk Life Festival, I guess that’s what encouraged me to play with indigo dyes, too. There’s a whole category in the sidebar for that!
I recently promised more images of things from the indigo dye pot. I love them all, but perhaps my favorite is the old embroidered tea towel you see above. I bought this tattered piece at an antique store, and though the stitching is lovely, it was a bit pale, as you see in the next image.
The beauty of buying a towel with stitching at both ends is that I can play with one and save the other, so I at least have one intact bit of stitch with history to use. So I ripped it apart, and dipped one in the dye pot. Oh, my. Isn’t it lovely? Yes, now I know the other end just might go for a swim, too.
Here are more results from those recent days of dyeing.
a pile of linens fresh from the dryer
A beekeeper’s garden toile from a bargain bin is now happier in my stash – it’s blue!
some handwoven linen from Belgium overdyed…great for tea towels, placemats, who knows?
A bit of old barkcloth curtains is now brown and blue…my favorite combination!
And the blue roses I shared last week…they still thrill me. Here they are on a different background.
I recently gave a talk to a guild about using indigo fabrics in quilts. I shared old quilts and new ones I had made. I included purchased indigo fabrics from Africa (again, both old and new ones), commercial reproductions of indigo fabrics, and fabric I had dipped in the indigo dye bath myself.
Once home, I rearranged quilt displays so I could visit with these pieces more.
And, with warmer temperatures outside, I knew it was time to resurrect the dye pot and get busy.
So for the past couple of days, I’ve been dipping. Yes, even a lampshade.
This is a tablecloth my mother crocheted for me in 1985. It was beige. I would see examples of this in antique stores and think how beautiful these objects would be if they were blue.
So I bought one to test my theory. I dyed this one on Tuesday and I liked it so well that I dared to dye Mama’s handwork on Wednesday.
I dipped a lot of other fabrics each day, too.
Napkins are always a favorite. The group pinned together is 9 matching linen napkins that had never been used. All the same size, I think they will be great backgrounds for appliqué.
A printed black on white linen skirt takes the dye beautifully. And, one of the most delightful pieces I dipped is a piece of Moda’s new line of barkcloth. It’s 100% cotton, but beefier than quilting cotton, and dipped and washed and dried, it is soft and buttery and ravels beautifully. Raveling well is important to me.
I’ve joined a new online group with Jude Hill, her latest adventure in soulful stitching. Ragmates in this journey with me can expect to see some of this dye lot in future explorations. I’ve written about Jude before in many posts, but she is the one who convinced me that I could explore indigo dying. Thanks, Jude.
