The mat was about worn out. The cat saw fit to start tearing it apart. I looked at the torn pieces and saw the mat was made of a material that has a sparkle to it. It is a gray like color. Kinda like the dun hackle.
I took a bunch of fibers and tried to see if I could dye them. The results are in the photo. My method of dying is quite simple. Take some fibers & place in a jar. Pour in enough hot water to cover the fibers, add a little food coloring and a little vinegar, put on a leak proof lid and shake, then forget it for a couple of hours. Remove fibers and rinse, Let dry & there you have it.
Colors in the photo are from food coloring except the center brown is from tea and the center right is from coffe.
The finished product makes good dubbing as well as bodies & tails.
Added: Some time ago Rick Z sent me some dubbing he said was made from old carpets. I believe the bathmat & Rick’s carpet are the same material.
Tim
Most carpet is either Antron or a like nylon product (that’s where Z-Lon comes from too). If you’re going to chop it up for dubbing (like in a coffee grinder) Go to your local carpet store and ask for samples in what ever color you want, wont have to dye as much that way. Those 6x6 squares once clipped off the backing and chopped up will yield a nice pile of dubbing.
I was able to get a couple of sample boards from stores when they discontinued a line of carpet. The squares are only 2x3 inches but you get 20 or 25 colors of each carpet type. It may be worth stopping into your local carpet stores.
If you don’t want to cut it up (or SWMBO would notice pieces missing from the bathmat!), Wet it down a little bit and throw it in the dryer. Clean the lint filter real good, and turn it on. Voila! bag it up!
As an added bonus, you get points for cleaning something in the house.
Jim, You get an A+ for effort on th dryer Idea, but any rug with a rubber backing tossed in the dryer will leave a mess in the lint trap with gritty little rubber bits. Not saying it can’t be used, but wont be what most people will be expecting as far as texture. Just sayin’!
I have a small bin of dubbing left from a carpet I found years ago. It was a 70’s Avocado shag…ugly as sin. But when I saw it…all I saw was damsel nymphs! I grabbed a strand and pulled on it, and just unravelled about 10 ft of carpet yarn. Cut it up into 3/4" chunks…And blended it in a coffee grinder with about 4 bags of Pale Olive hareline. It has served me perfectly for about 15 years. But it’s nearly gone now. I need to go follow a South Philly carpet truck around for a few days. I’m sure sooner or later they will tear that very same carpet out of another house:^)))))
Thanks for the kind comments. I knew I could get carpet scraps & make my own dubbing but half the fun is experimenting with the dye to see what colors you can obtain. My next step will to be to mix my own dubbing and then from there ???
Panman, Dyeing your colors/shades is still a viable options, Justlook for carpet scraps in lighter neutral colors (white, off white, beige etc.). Better yet, get one of the door mat size (18x24) samples, and you’ll have enough to dye dozens of colors.
The bath mat is a light dun (grey) color. It is 22 x 33 inches and has enough strands in it to last several life times. I think that dun color is what made the yellow food coloring turn to a nice gold color (see picture on the first post).
Nice colours. If you have some oaks, grab some acorns next fall. Boil up about 20 or 30 acorns and you’ll get a really good brown dye. The tannins in the acorns acts as a fixative, so it should be colour fast. Also, look for alum in the spice section (it’s a salt used for making pickles). Add some of that to help fix the colours for some of the plant dyes (like the coffee) if you find it isn’t colour fast.
Oh yah, brown onion skins makes a great dye . Again, use the alum with this one.
