Using Vegetable Dyes by http://krydderuglen.blogspot.dk/p/plantefarver.html

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Vegetable dyes – Plant Dye

In my color kitchen I use only non-toxic stuff, there are children in the house, and I’m allergic to many things without looking for it to spread.Pickling:

    All my woolen dressed only in 20% alum. I wind the yarn up and bind loose on a couple of places, so it does not filter along the way. Alun dissolved in a spot of hot water in a pan, then pour cold water and soaked yarn also met in. It is heated over a low flame for 80 degrees – that’s when it småbobler the edge if you do not have a thermometer ( it is a worthwhile investment). The pot is kept at 80 degrees for an hour and then I turn off and leave it until it is cold. I often wash the yarn after priming, but it’s not necessary. Wool yarn can stand to cook without something happens to it, it just heated up slowly and cool down slowly again, it sometimes happens that it boils ;).

   All yarns are stained as soon as it comes in the door. It does not hurt, even if it’s unnecessary, and I take no mistake. Alun I buy Matas, and it says on the tub that it can both be used to make clay for children and cooking, so it is not toxic in my book. It tastes the way, pretty atrocious.

    In thrift stores, I am always looking for white wool, even if you have knit any of it. It can be unraveled and stained.

    After pickling and drying wraps I wool yarn into small keys, 10 g each, if I got it done before. Then they are ready for trial when I find an interesting plant or fungus.

   For clothes I knit only with alpaca yarn. Wool itch for so vile 😉 Alpaca yarn takes less well against the colors, but it gets pretty.

Staining:

First I put all plant parts in a BIG pot, so I pour water into the pan to the plants is more than covered, so I do the yarn thoroughly wet in warm water and put it at the top of the pan. The pot is then added over the fire on low setting and warms up slowly. It may take several hours before the soup color when the correct temperature, somewhere between 75 and 80 degrees for most plants the. So I keep the temperature there for an hour and have additional hot water ready if the water level gets too low. Sometimes I turn gently around it with a stick and I also draw a bit of the yarn up to follow staining. Carefully, so as not to filter. After an hour I turn off the pot and leave it to it’s cold, preferably to the next dag. Often can “urtesuppen” recycled, it is called 2 bath and gives a lighter shade of the same color. Very beautiful tone-on-tone dyeing of yarn.

   The next day I take the yarn up, rinse it until it does not give off color, wash it in soap flakes or homemade uldsæbe, rinse in three changes of water and then added a slightly acid.

   Then I hang it up to dry in a place with plenty of air, but not in the sun, I turn it few times along the way, if I remember it. Then it’s ready to win up and use.

Interestingly, this is definitely the easiest way to dye wool yellow or brownish with plants. The green color is also used to get while red and blue are very difficult. There must cochenillelus, fungi or low to the red, blue only available in indigo, the so comes from Vaid, indigo, Japanese indigo or black beans, it’s the same dye. And in contrast to the other colors, not requiring blue into the yarn, but settles on the surface of the fibers. Therefore, the blue the least durable of all colors. This also applies to jeans 😉

The plants are:
Most plants are good both fresh and dried.

Oregano

Oregano gives a beautiful golden brown color and a strong odor. The picture is too bright and the color really much deeper brown. 1 bath is darker than 2 bath, it gives a beautiful effect when using the yarn.

Tansy

Tansy provides a beautiful, bright yellow. Here are two bundles, the dark is 1 bath and the light at the back is 2 bath.
You use only the flowers, it’s a bit of a tweaking, but the yellow color is very delicious.

Birch leaves
Birch leaves gives the most beautiful and fade resistant color. It’s a real sunshine.
You should only use the leaves, not the stems or twigs, it makes the color cloudy.

Nettles
  H is b eet soap and wool dyed with nettles. I have used 6 parts to 1 part nettle yarn. The soaps lost quite fast color, but the yarn is still the same pale green two years later.

Scentless chamomile

is my favorite plant yellows. It grows like a weed in large amounts and it is great. Sunshine and summer. I use 4-5 parts plant to 1 part wool.

Note: The plant provides only yellow color from the start to bloom and the end of July. It can either be frozen or dried, as the other color plants.

Below mittens knitted from wool dyed with scentless chamomile and natural brown wool.

Black beans

They also contain indigo carmine. And is very easy to farms with. It should not boil, as it will be steel gray. Ask three parts beans to soak in plenty of water, they expand. Let them be cool for 3 days and stir occasionally. Add soaked wool to the beans without moving around too much in it and gently invert the yarn is twice the next 3 days.
The color is fairly light fast, but can not withstand machine washing!

See also this post on bean color:
Staining with black beans

The bundle to the right was in the bean water for 3 days. Bundled left came in bean water after 1 ½ days.

Ground elder

Yes, it’s also a color plant. Use just enough, it is not to eradicate 😉 Here 6 parts plant thru 1 part yarns. It was delicate pale green, a real spring color.

First attempt with St. John’s Wort.

St. John’s wort.
It grows in the parking lot in Helsinge, along forest trails nearby, and now in my garden. On alunbejdset yarn gives the whole plant green after 10 minutes to a half hour, then it changes to golden, then more brownish and last bundle is yellow-golden.
The first bundle to the pan along with the plants, so I boil another pot with another bunch wool in clean water. When the yarn in color pan is suitable green, I put it into the hot water and get the second ball of yarn in color pan. This, I repeat, after two hours of time with the now beautiful golden yarn into the pot and again the next morning with the golden brown, the last bundle cooling off in the color pot and gets light gulgyldent.

Below. All colored in the same St. John’s wort-pan. Clockwise around: Horse hair 2 Initially, alpaccagarn 1 turn (the two major’ve got less time). Wool 2 (The small) and 3 (The great) place. Kaninuld 4 game.

Walnut.
It grows in gardens all around, even in our neighbor, where I have been allowed to collect as many shells, I feel like – and a few nuts. The fresh peel color brown, a deep and lovely color. I can only find a picture of a tiny bundle, but there was more of the same glorious color.

Reed
Flowering reed found in large quantities near me. They provide a luminous green., A bit like a understregningspen. You do not need many flowers to give color to contrast color exhausted after a bath.