Sally Koski
minnesota, usa
Stockholm 115: Dyeing of Various Colors To prepare Phoenician dye
Take and combine heliotrope with alkanet. Lay them in an earthen vessel and sprinkle them for 3 days with white vinegar. On the fourth day boil them, with the addition of water, until these float at the top. If you desire, however, to dye cedar color then take out the alkanet, and boil lightly, but if you wish cherry-red then add krimnos soured with a little soap. Put the wool in and boil it together with the substances until it appears to you to be good.
introduction:
I decided to focus on recipes I felt I could recreate because they had ingredients I was familiar with or ingredients I could obtain fairly easily. I live in growing zone 3a and have a very short growing season and need to rely on dye ingredients I could grow, harvest in this area, or purchase. After reviewing the recipes, I chose #115 because it seemed to be a recipe I could obtain ingredients for rather easily. I decided to try the Phoenician dye and the cherry-red variation of #115. I was able to purchase alkanet in powder form. I grew several heliotrope plants, which provided the heliotrope for the recipe. I had a number of questions about the recipe, ingredients, and process for #115:
What type of vinegar should be used?
What type of earthern vessel should be used for the beginning of this process?
What variety of heliotrope should be used – or did it matter? What part of the plant should be used?
Did using alkanet in the powder form alter the results of the recipe?
How much of each ingredient should be used?
What is krimnos exactly? (There was some discrepancy amongst dyers in our group as to how to interpret this term).
What type of soap was used to “sour” the dye bath?
Would different fibers result in different colors? I chose to try a small amount of wool roving, cotton, and raw silk.
S 118: To Produce a Gold Color by Cold Dyeing
Take safflower blossom and oxeye, crush them together and lay them in water. Put the wool in and sprinkle with water. Lift the wool out, expose it to the air, and use it.
introduction:
I decided to focus on recipes I felt I could re-produce because the ingredients familiar or were ingredients I could obtain. I live in growing zone 3a and have a very short growing season and need to rely on dye ingredients I could grow, harvest in this area, or purchase. After reviewing the recipes, I chose #118 because it seemed to be a recipe I could obtain ingredients for rather easily. Safflower was purchased in bulk (dried) after I had a crop failure trying to grow it. Oxeye readily grows here in fields and along the roads, so it was easy to obtain. Both plants were used in a dried form, as the growing/harvesting times are very different here. Oxeye blooms in June – safflower would be harvested in late August September. My crop died before it really blossomed. The questions I had as I formulated my dyeing plan were:
Is the oxeye referenced in the dye recipe the same oxeye that grows here in northern Minnesota?
Which part(s) of the oxeye plant were to be used? The recipe directly referenced safflower blossoms, but there was no reference to which part of the oxeye plant was used.
What portions of each ingredient were used and at what weight of fiber?
When you “put the wool in and sprinkle with water” how long do you leave it in until you “lift the wool out, expose it to air and use it”?
Will the color that’s produced be the same in different fabrics? I wanted to see what would happen with wool, raw silk, and cotton.
