I had a look at my blog the other night to discover that I haven't made an update since May 20th. So much for staying on top of things. At least I've been busy, not only wrapping up the school year and my busy volunteer schedule there, and spending 4 nights a week toting the boys to and from the soccer pitch for practices and games, but also with some knitting, spinning, and plenty of dye experimentation.
Now, unfortunately, I haven't completely documented the dyeing process as much as I had initially planned (I got WAY too excited about doing it), but I do have a few records here and there of my efforts.
In early June I thought I'd haul out my giant pickle jar and attempt to dye some wool with coffee beans in the sun. The heat from the sun is supposed to release the colour from the beans into the water to dye the yarn and the tannin in coffee is supposed to be a natural mordant. To help things along, I made liquid portion of the project 1 part vinegar to 3.5 parts warm water. I added about 1 1/2 cups of whole beans to my pre-soaked wool (1 skein of Briggs & Little Regal), covered the jar with a thick plastic shipping bag, and let it sit on the deck for a day in the sun.Upon inspection on day 2, I wasn't happy with how the colour was saturating the wool (see above photo), so I brewed a pot of strong coffee, let it cool, and added that to the jar. The wool didn't seem to pick up too much more of the colour, but after a few more days on the deck, I steamed it in the microwave as I do to set my food colouring dyes, rinsed it, cleaned it and I'm pretty happy with the final result. It's not as dark as I had anticipated, but it's a lovely café au lait colour.
I'll try this again, but next time I'll do it on the stove top and go straight to the brewed coffee. I've read that a pot of coffee run through the machine twice will yield an extra strong result, and, I hope, it will also yield an extra strong dye.
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