Donna Kallner Fiber Art

My cavalier approach to natural dye documentation must drive some of you nuts. Any 8th grader knows from working on science projects that I go about things all wrong. Well, maybe not all wrong. But I certainly don’t make it easy for others to replicate my results. When was the last time you read “weight of fiber” here? Right.

This is going to sound awful, but I really don’t care if others can “replicate” my results. I do care, and care deeply, that others feel encouraged to explore uses of natural dye materials they can grow or gather where they live. That’s why I share these experiments in the first place. Chances are you won’t have access to the exact same materials. Or you won’t have the recommended weight of materials in relation to weight of fiber. Or your water chemistry will be different. Or any number of other variables will make your results unique. That’s why I write about the process, instead of the product.

Continue reading Natural Dyes — The Unscientific Method

That’s a variation on one of my alkaline extraction natural dyes on the left, and a pH modifier test on the right. I’m tempted to leave them hanging on the towel rod in the bathroom because they look so pretty in there.

For the one on the left, I simmered the wool yarn in a rhubarb leaf immersion bath. That helped use up some of the frozen dye materials that were relegated to the porch in my recent freezer purge.

Continue reading More Fun With pH

Unencumbered by controlled experiments or good recordkeeping, my exploration of alkaline extraction natural dyes continues. Here’s what the last batch of wool yarn looked like when washed and dry.

Continue reading Alkaline Extraction Dye Update

Natural dye experiments have been on the back burner lately, but I am making a little progress with alkaline extractions. My current extractions are white pine bark, sumac leaves and Siberian iris leaves and of course willow bark.

Continue reading Natural Dye — Alkaline Extractions