STAINED IN ONIONS - Readers Cast - September 28, 2009

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STAINED IN ONIONS

Jeff Hamm shows us how we can dye wool in natural materials to obtain some really nice results.

[Flap Jack]

Hi Jeff

Very nice job, I enjoyed your article. I can remember growing up on the farm and how my mother and grandmother would use different natural items to dye just about anything that would take a stain. They also used onions and many of the other items you listed plus a few more. The wool you stained looks great. I really like the colors you got. I know it will make killer flies. I could be wrong but I don't think Alum would really be necessary for dying wool. But I don't think it would hurt anything either. I've done some natural tanning of hides with the hair left on and I was always told the alum was needed to keep the hair from slipping or falling out after the skin was tanned. Using too much alum does seem to make the hides very stiff. Keep us informed of the flies and how the fish like your flies from onion skins. Thanks for an interesting article.

Flap Jack

[JeffHamm]

Thanks Flap Jack,

I think the alum helps preseve the colours, making them resistant to fading. Probably not a serious problem with flies since they are not fished in hot water, though it's also supposed to help make them colour fast to the sun light too. Other metalic salts can be used, iron and chrome I recall, but some of them are poisonous. Alum is safe. Anyway, this is a very simple way to dye.

Oh, I just noticed that the plant material used for #4 is not listed, that was dandelions (using roots, leaves, stems, and flowers; if you use just the open yellow flowers you get yellow dye). Tree bark, off new growth, works too. I recently used some from a species of maple (not sure what kind) and dyed up some white lama wool and ended up with a ginger.

- Jeff

[Flap Jack]

Jeff
Yes you are correct about the alum I didn't think of that. I can see the need and how the alum would make the wool color fast. You are also correct about using the bark from trees. I can remember Mum using walnuts, butternuts, hemlock, cherry and maple. Back then each family did things a little different with secrete formulas to get different colors. I also remember she would brew the stuff up outside and then store it for later use.

Flap Jack

[JeffHamm]

Hi Flap Jack,

I recall reading about walnuts. The husk that surrounds the shell produces a very good strong brown dye. There's a huge walnut tree growing at the camp ground I stay at when I'm in Rotorua, so next time I'm there at the right time of year I'll be picking up husks to give them a try. Berries work as well, but I just can't bring myself to waste a good feed of fresh strawberries or blueberries. Variations of yellow through orange/browns are the most common, it's going towards blue that harder to find. Woad and Indigo give a strong blue, but the dying process is quite complicated and involves ... uh ... stale urine. It apparently has no oxygen in it (which is, incidently, why you can't breath it , and that breaks down the blue dye into a water soluable form (which is green) and so it will then transport into the wool. Remove it from it's bath, and as it gets exposed to the air, the dye turns blue again. But, the dye is not very colour fast and eventually fades and washes out of the material (think blue jeans). Good pure reds are apparently hard too. There's a lot of neat lore in dyes. Purple was a royal colour because of how hard it was to make, the dye came from a shell fish of some sort. Go figure.

- Jeff

[JohnScott]

Jeff -

Maple walnut is my favorite ice cream.

Bet the fishies will go for that flavor, also !!

John

P.S. You are talking about flavored flies, aren't you ??

[Betty Hiner]

Had to laugh when I read "walnuts" and "colorfast" in the same post!! I harvested a ton of walnuts last year in one of our state parks, and, after proper drying, husked them (or what ever you call it!!). My hands, even through gloves, instantly turned a deep brown. The color lasted for MONTHS!!! Maybe that's why the "earlier" ladies used the walnut coloring for hair dye?

[JeffHamm]

Mmmmm, maple walnut.

Betty's picked us some walnuts too! Yum!

- Jeff

P.S. I think walnut dye is one that doesn't require a "mordant", so you don't need the Alum to get it to take. As Betty has indicated!

[Nycflyangler]

According to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordant

Unlike cotton, wool is highly receptive toward mordants. Due to its amphoteric [a substance that can react as either an acid or base] nature wool can absorb acids and bases equally effectively. When wool is treated with a metallic salt it hydrolyses [ water molecules split into hydrogen and hydroxide ions] the salt into an acidic and basic component. The basic component is absorbed at –COOH group and the acidic component is removed during washing. Wool also has a tendency to absorb fine precipitates from solutions; these cling to the surface of fibres and dye particles attached to these contaminants result in poor rubbing fastness.
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Oh and I just had to comment on Betty Hiner's sig line with this.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2...tchicago-salmo

[JeffHamm]

Thanks for that Nycflyangler. Dying is quite an ineteresting process. Fun to play with for sure.

- Jeff