Dyeing silks is our craft for virtual community crafting September 21st, when the school is closed for Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year celebration).
L'shanah tovah! A happy and sweet new year! (If celebrating, you can certainly dye silks any other days.)
The
School Store is selling white silks 35x35" of a nice, heavier quality to use for dying playsilks.
The idea is to have time to make a plant dye and leave the silk in it a while so the color is as strong as you want, which would take longer than our time together on Thursday mornings. Around this time of year, the early childhood program includes dyeing golden silk flags for their Michaelmas celebration (this year on September 28th). If you don't know about Michaelmas, please come to crafting and we will talk about how Hartsbrook celebrates, historical background, and more universal experience of the season.
Thank you to Nicole Romer, parent, handwork teacher, and owner of
Heavenly Hues, for sharing her instructions for how to plant dye animal fibers!
These are from my notes last Thursday. Please forgive me as they may not be clear and possibly not exactly accurate! If you have differing notes or expertise, please comment below and/or email me to fix!
To dye silks
- Mordant the silk first, for a richer color and for color to last longer.
To mordant:
- In a stainless steel pot large enough for fabric to move around, dissolve 2 1/2 Tablespoons of alum per 1 pound of silk. (For one silk, about 1 teaspoon.)
Note: Alum is short for Aluminum Potassium Sulfate which is similar to or also called pickling salt. The school store has small amounts available if you don't want to buy the large quantities in which it is usually is sold.
- After 10 minutes, add cold water and fabric.
- Slowly bring to 200F, which is a simmer, not full boil (212F).
- Keep at low simmer for 45 minutes.
- Cool overnight, keeping fabric wet in a plastic bag to cure (it needs to be wet for dyeing anyway).
- Prepare the dye bath (instructions for dyeing with goldenrod below, or use food coloring and vinegar, or KoolAid. It's possible you can use KoolAid without bothering with mordant step). You can do this step while the mordant is simmering, if you have enough pots!
To prepare goldenrod dye:
- Fill a pot with flowers, stems, leaves (cut stems just below where the yellow flowers stop).
If you can still find the yellow flowers around meadows in the valley,
collect them (some leaves ok) to fill a small pot. Goldenrod can make a
bright sunshine yellow. If you have marigolds or turmeric you could add
those for slightly different yellow color.
- Cover with cold water and let sit overnight.
- Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for an hour.
- Cool overnight.
- Using an old t-shirt, strain out the plant matter, put the dye bath back into a pot.
- To dye and cure the silk:
- Rinse the mordanted silk in cool water.
- Put the fabric in the goldenrod bath.
- Slowly warm up to 180 degrees (hot but not burning when you dip your figure quickly in) and simmer low for 45 minutes.
- Cool the fabric in the dye bath for 1-2 days.
- Hang it to dry in the shade.
- Wash by hand with vinegar or mild soap, and optionally iron when damp.
On September 28th, it would be lovely to have everyone bring in silks we dyed to see them all together.
Left to right: Goldenrod, goldenrod with raw pokeberry after, cooked pokeberry, and raw pokeberry.
(The raw pokeberry washed out the most after drying. There's something about adding cream of tartar that might help?)
