Making a Dye Bath

Today while enjoying my morning romp at the lake, I came across 2 large pokeberry plants set in a landscape bed.

I think perhaps the workers didn't know it's a weed. It must have grown so happily and quickly. But it was loaded with berries and I couldn't resist.

I ran back to my car for a plastic grocery bag and filled it up. Branches too, because I found I quickly turned magenta if I tried to pull the berries off the twig.

Once upon a time I was a historic house manager for a 17th century site in Virginia. It was a great place to work. We did lots of public programming, and one that I am proud to have introduced was natural dyeing.

We bought madder, indigo, cochineal, and henna to demonstrate. And we also collected onion skins and some natural plants that grew around us, like privet. And pokeberry.

We dyed the old fashioned way, and the cheap way too, for our little non-profit place. We used hot plates when we had school kids, but open fires in other instances. We cut up little squares of cotton muslin for everyone to take home.

I'm not sure we did everything right. We would place a piece of iron in the dye bath, so it would act as a mordant for the fibers and the dye would be more color fast. We used a vinegar rinse.

Today after I got home with my white grocery bag rapidly turning this color purple, I did some reading on the pokeberry and the best ways to dye it.

A natural dye has different levels of color-fastness, and some can wash out pretty quickly. The trick is to find a good mordant, something that creates a chemical reaction so that the color will actually bond into the molecules of the fibers rather than coat it. It's the difference between stain and paint. The latter is a covering, removable, and the former becomes part of the fibers.

I have a nice white skein of wool that I may experiment with. I'll need to soak it in acidic water. They recommend soda wash, but I may try alum. Because that's easy to find, right in the spice aisle at the store. Then I'll need to add some of that water to the pokeberries and simmer, then let sit overnight. Then I'll be able to play with a colored yarn dyed by me! How exciting.

I live in FL and pokeberries are in bloom now. I've also seen the cochineal bug, the real live thing, on prickly pears. I peeled back their white webby stuff concealing the insect to to show the kids, and my fingers immediately turned red. I'd need a bushel of those bugs, though, wouldn't I? Best to let them enjoy their life on a cactus.

I'll show the results later.