Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Stinging nettle dye for wool






4 Lb stinging nettles (gathered early-mid spring, overcast weather)
1/2 lb wool mordanted with 1/2 oz alum
Bring nettles to boil for 1 hour, leave to cool over night, strain.  Add mordanted wool to dye bath, bring slowly to almost boil (took 3 hours), turned off, left to cool in dye bath.
Washed dyed wool.

Very mild yellow-green.  Kind of feeling it wasn't worth the effort

3 comments:

Josiane said...

It's too bad the colour came out so light, especially after so much work... Oh well, it was worth a try!

Cecilia N said...

There is a saying in Sweden: "lot of scream and not so much of wool, said the farmer sharing the pig".

I'm sorry to hear that all the efforts was in vain.

Although, here is a list of species used for dying and according to that (brännässla is the Swedish word for stinging nettle) one should use the root together with alum.

Cecilia N said...

"Shear" of course!