Wow I got a lot done today. Besides some family things, I worked more on Coral Reef, and also mordanted 12 skeins of wool totaling about 3.6 kilos. If you don't know, to mordant is to apply a chemical to fiber so that it will be able to bond with a dye; these are required with most natural dyes. Meantime, I had ordered several natural dyes, and they came in today's mail. There's madder, because I'm out; this time I found a source for ground madder, which should yield much more color than the whole roots, no matter how long they're soaked. I also got safflowers, which yield both an orange and a pink depending on how you push the Ph of the dye bath; it's a whole big process. I even found my Wild Colour dye book, which is irreplaceable being out of print and worth over $100. I am also going to try the inner bark of the Black Oak, which is supposed to produce a really fine yellow. And, there's still all those cherry shavings.....
For the photo of the day I thought I'd post the raw materials for Coral Reef.
Thank you for reading!
Ooooh -- these photos are looking much better! Those colors really pop on my screen.
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