Dyeing Results - Experiment #1

Over the last several weeks I have been experimenting with natural dyes.  The only dyeing I have previously done was in 2009 (I think) with onion skins.  I managed a lovely marigold color with those (on wool) on my first attempt, but only a pale, dull yellow when I tried a second batch.

I have known for years that I wanted to weave my own fabric, and given that I also recently took up spinning, a more serious attempt at natural dyeing seems to be the logical next step.  So, I tried a couple of dye baths with madder and weld (and still have another madder bath going) and below are my initial results.

Above you can see my initial attempts.  This is a white wool roving that I dyed with weld (left) and madder (middle and right).  They were each mordanted with alum for 12 hours.  The weld sat in the dye bath for 4 hours (I wish now I had left it longer), the madder in the middle was there for 3 days and the madder on the right was 5 days. 

I actually still have that same madder bath going as it was not nearly exhausted.  The items I added this time were mordanted for 3 days and the wool has been in the dye for 7 days so far.

---

The yarn above is my Icelandic hand spun (2 ply).  On the left is undyed (it was a natural heathered beige) and the center has the madder and to the right is the weld.  These skeins soaked in the same dye baths as the wool roving.  I actually like how the weld looks on the heathered yarn more than I do on the roving. 

---

---

Now, I cannot make something just for the sake of making it, even if it is something you have to practice a lot in order to obtain a quality product.  (I actually guess that would be a period practice as well, lol.)

So, the skeins of dyed yarn are being woven into a tablet band that will start a warp for a miniature warp-weighted loom that I am constructing.  For the band design, I was inspired by the double diamond pattern of the image to the left.  This is a fragment of an extant band from Kaupang (more info can be found in Hilde Thunem's document here http://urd.priv.no/viking/smokkr.html ).  It appears from the diagram that the original might have been brocaded, but given that this is for warping purposes it is not a technique I wanted to test out on this particular piece.

I also will admit that do not truly understand the "how" of tablet weaving just yet.  I can print a pattern off of the internet, set up the weaving according to the directions and follow the turn turn/flip pattern that they suggest, but this piece is my first attempt at really understanding the process of how weaving with cards creates a pattern.  So, I drafted the pattern myself, set it up and fuddled with it until I got the weaving to show the pattern I was expecting. 

Plan to weave a bit of the band on either side of the warp, so you can see below that I have started the left hand bit of the weaving.

---