On Dying Wool With Bracken Tops

First I got a .42# skein of pure white Icelandic Wool from Violet at Kilby Ridge Farm.   I tied it together every 6 inches or so, you can see the tightness of the tying, which ended up being a bit too tight in the end.

I then washed it 4 times in warm water using a non-detergent laundry soap.

I made a mordant (which helps set the color into the fiber) with 3 gallons soft spring water, 2 oz alum and .7 oz cream of tartar.  I started the steep at warm and brought it up to just before simmering for 1 hour, with occasional stirrings.  I then rinsed it bring it back down to a reasonable room temperature in decreasingly hot baths to try and prevent drastic temperature changes as my dye bath was not ready.

To make the dye bath I used bracken tops (fern tops or fiddleheads) I do not think these were an edible fiddlehead and I harvested them from the gully next to my house.  These were supposed to make a yellowish-green dye.  I gathered about .9# chopped it up into bits and simmered them in 4 gallons of spring water for 2 hours.  I then strained out the fern bits and topped off the dyestuff back to 4 gallons.

Before adding the skein I brought the yarn up to temperature in increasingly warm water baths in the sink.  When it was close to the temperature of the dye I added the yarn and just about simmered it for 1 hour.

I then rinsed the dye out of the yarn in decreasingly warm water baths until the water ran clear.  It dried in a dim room on a towel for 3 days.  It is supposed to dry in the shade.  This gave me an adequate amount of time to come to terms with the fact that the yarn was not yellow, nor green and it had felted together.

Nonetheless I was able to pick it apart while watching a movie and loosely ball it into this lovely yarn ball.  I then made a very simple birthday shawl/scarf for my dear friend's birthday present.  The neat thing about the color is that it keeps changing... sometimes it's peach or pink or orange or tan, this project left me feeling excited for the next experiment in natural yarn dyeing!