laupäev, 27. detsember 2008

Meanwhile: hesitations

In English:
When you are not absolutely sure of yourself or do not have enough experience of dyeing yarn there'll be all kinds of changes in a previously set plan. And questions. Questions you ask in a forum an those you don't because... yes, why?

For example, whereas I have cochineal colour water left since the recent dyeing, I also have a hank of pink yarn -- dyed with the second cochineal water. A kind of colour that I hardly use for anything -- well, maybe as one for a multicoloured pattern, but even this is not quite plausible. So, I want to redye the pink hank. Do I have to mordant it? -- I did. In the same pot with a hank of white yarn. The next worried question: maybe the yarn has been too much mordanted by now (before the previous dyeing plus today)?
And another: today the mordanting water became pink, and the white yarn in the pot got light purple spots on it. Which means: the colour of the cochineal pink yarn probably is not fast enough. What should I think now of other yarns dyed with cochineal on the same day? They were dyed in the first dyewater, thus they may be faster, and I hope so.

And then, there are questions concerning the madder dye water. Both the soaking water and the water got after short-time boiling of madder roots (see Plan for extracting the colour and handling the roots, points 1-2 in the previous post) look dark purple, more like dye water got from cochineal, not madder (or so I think -- I've never seen madder water earlier). Should I still be afraid of brown and yellow pigments in these portions of water?

I guess, even good experience wouldn't let one get rid of questions. For dyeing with herbs is always an experiment. And experimenting is fun. And thus you are going to have new experiments, new experience, and new questions all the time.

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