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...SO MANY dumb ways to dye!

 

 

Seriously, though. If you attempt an acid dye bath experiment, have some good ventilation, fans, and don't put it on to boil and then forget about it when your cat crawls on your lap and falls asleep, because then it might produce a bunch of acidic gas that creeps up on you and tries to suffocate you.

 

Do you remember that super-catchy New York Subway PSA from a million years ago about all the stupid ways you can kill yourself--with touching the third rail being high up on that list?

 

 

I feel like that's what this whole natural dye experiment is turning into. To be fair, all of it has be clumsiness on my part.

First, I got bit by my machete (see previous blog post). Now this.

And then, insult to injury, I destroyed all of my little bloodroot friends by not paying attention to the baggie labels.

Siiiggggggghhhhh.

Let's see how badly I can fail at this before accidentally killing myself, blowing up my apartment, or actually learning my lesson and becoming careful with blades, acids, and bases.

 

It kind of went bad from the start. Again, carelessness.

I had read on another blog that, with hardwood dye materials, you should soak the wood for at least three weeks before attempting to make the dye. Then you're supposed to chop up the wood in a food processor, soak some more, and then start the dye process. So I dumped a gallon of distilled water with the first batch of wood I had chopped up--a combination of chunks and shavings I lathed off--into a giant pot I'd bought from a flea market (and not washed), put the lid on, and left it for a week.

When I decided to peek at how the color was coming along on Monday, I was greeted with a cloud of the most noxious fug that has ever fugged. It was that slimy, grimy odor you get when you ignore dishes in the sink for a week or two because you're too busy or tired to do anything but work around them. (Umm. Not that I've ever done that before or know anything about neglecting my kitchen dishes. *Cringe Emoji*)

 

Of course, my response to this is to immediately throw it on the stove to boil and add lots of salt and vinegar to kill off the bacteria. This makes sense to me. The stench permeates my nightmares. Thank God it's been a cool spring and now the pollen has calmed down--I was able to throw open all the windows and keep them open.

 

Now, of course, the color has started coming along, so I don't want to waste the time and materials by throwing any of it out.  (Note: you bring to a simmer and let it do that for a couple of hours to develop the bath, then let it cool again. Then simmer a couple of hours, then cool. I did this for a couple of days, then added my scoured shirts to the bath along with a quarter cup of alum. Still no idea if I've done this in the right order.)

 

I started to get a nice, creamy yellow color built up on the shirts.

Then, of course, I pull them out--along with a ton of wood shavings and twigs, all of which were embedded with the fabric. Now I realize why everyone is always all, "Put your material in a place so you can easily strain it out. It'll make your life easier!"

And I'm all, "THIS DYE BATH IS NO MATCH FOR ME AND MY TONGS!!!" Yeah, I lost that battle. Check out my woody yellow shirts!

 

 

The dye bath is a really pretty color at this point, and I'm excited about it!

 

.   <-- Material that I tonged from the bath

 

Meanwhile, I've also cut up my bloodroot, soaked it for a couple of hours, simmered and cooled it a couple of times, taken my lesson on straining, and strained it out before continuing to reduce the color bath. I had this idea to make it into a paint so I could stretch it further, since it's not easy to forage and I don't want to take too much from the environment. I set the remaining root aside to store in jars (just as soon as I get some). I added table salt and alum to the bath to make it color-fast and brighten it to be more red than orange.

 

LOOK AT THIS PRETTY COLOR! (Strained roots on the left; pretty orange-red color on the right. Ignore the blue light reflection from my coffee pot.)

 

 

Since it was a very small batch, I only try to dye one t-shirt--a teeny-eeny shirt for my stepsister's baby (who should be coming any day now!) It comes out a very attractive sherbert orange.

 

Now I look up how to make a "lake" pigment paint from reducing the dye. I'm supposed to add 1/4 cup alum/boiling water solution to the bath. Then, I'm supposed to add 1 tbsp soda ash to 1/2 cup hot water and add it slllooooowwwwlllly to the bath, just until it foams up. (For those not paying attention, this is much less soda ash than alum.) Then you wait for it to stop foaming and start straining out the sediment, dry it in the sun, and repeat the condensing/straining process until it's gone. Then you can add it to some gum arabic and make paint.

 

I painstakingly prep all of my materials, after I've meticulously cleaned and sterilized all of my pots and jars and stuff.
(I'M TEACHABLE, DAMMIT!!)

 

In my defense, alum and soda ash are both very fine white powders in nearly identical baggies.

 

So this is what it looks like when you dump a solution of 1/4 cup of soda ash in water very quickly:

This gorgeous color: 

 

Turns to this in one second flat: 

 

And this in another second flat:    

 

It was truly astonishing how quickly the sludge subsumed all of the work I'd carefully prepared.

 

Later that night, I nearly gassed myself out with the yellow dye.

The sick part of me still wants to work with that dye bath and make a yellow lake color called "Toxic Lake." I know it's super-acidic and boils toxic gas borne of super-concentrated fuggy bacteria, vinegar, salt, and alum, AND that you're not supposed to boil this at all (Just simmer!) because it'll muddle and become brown. I should just throw it out, learn my lesson, and carefully prep next time.

But the toxic lake is calling. Oh, how it's calling.

 

Oh--and I was just cleaning the kitchen and found the rotten husks of the bloodroots that I forgot to store properly.

They deserved better than that. I'm sorry my little rooty friends. Thank you for the lessons you taught me.