Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Ooohhh! If only I had more time!! I collected some vivid lime green wolf lichen from around here and heard that was a decent natural dye. I experimented with some fabric scraps but only had mediocre results.
I would love to hear more about this!!
The mediocre results may be because the fibres you used were not wool or protein based. Also, mordants can make a huge difference. Alum is the most common and cheaply and easily obtained (I use the aluminum sulphate you can buy from gardening supplies to change soil ph) Often cream of tartar is added with the mordant.
A lot of natural dyes work only on protein fibres (wool, silk, hair, etc), and the ones that work on cellulose (cotton, linen, hemp, etc) often need a longer and more complicated mordanting process. I would suggest that you first experiment using wool yarn, and if you get good results, then try your scraps of fabric. Often if I am experimenting with a new dye possibility, I will mordant several small skeins of wool with different mordants and then put them all in the dye pot together to see what different colours result. Of course, each bit of wool must be somehow labeled, so if you get a colour you like, you can repeat it.
You can experiment without mordants if you have an iron or copper pot to dye in. I have experimented using an aluminum pot instead of alum as well, and while it does work, the colours obtained are not as fast or as bright as using alum. Colours of some natural sources can also be change considerabley by using either an acid or alkaline rinse after dying - add a bit of vinegar or washing soda to the rinse water, and let the fibres soak for awhile to see if colours change - usually the change is immediate and dramatic if it occurs.
