| Here are 2 balls of yarn I wound. This yarn was a bare sock yarn from KnitPicks. It is a superwash wool with 25% nylon. Those little flecks of color are in the wool that I purchased. The small bit of yarn in the foreground I also threw in the pot to see if it would take the dye differently. The smaller yarn is 100% Peruvian wool, also from KnitPicks. It appeared to dye a bit brighter and darker than the nylon blend wool. Like I did with the fabric and tee-shirt dyeing, I saved the prickly pear cactus fermented juice and tossed in 3 skeins of bulky weight wool yarn to ferment for a couple of weeks and I think I might end up with a light pink shade...stayed tuned and we'll see what happens. |
Daryl, I just love the natural dye. Much better than the kool-aid I tried several years ago.
ReplyDeleteHi Daryl,
ReplyDeleteCan you tell me if the yarn faded over time?
Thank you!
lizzy
Lizzy I hope you come back here to read this because you are a no-reply blogger which means I have no email to contact you directly. I made a scarf out of this yarn, so it doesn't get washed often and I haven't worn it outside that much either so it has not faded.
ReplyDeleteMay I ask how many pears you used and how you went about handling the pear. Did you slice it open? Juice it? And did you use a mordant? My neighbor has a cactus that has these growing on it and he let me pick some today but I'm not sure of the how. Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteFalulabell@ yahoo.com
An easy way to get the juice from the prickly pears is to freeze them in bags for about a week. Then take the frozen prickly pears or tunas out of the bag and place in a colander. The beautiful juice will drip through and the pulp, skin, seeds, and spines will not. To get a clean juice I then strain it through a wet pillow case. Don't worry the color will unfortunately easily rinse out of the case.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone tried to mordant to help hold the color--ie salt or vinegar or something natural. I would like to try to dye some hand spun yarn with prickly pears--I am thinking about just juicing the pears and putting them in a large glass bottle and then submerging the yarn. Then leaving the jar in the sun for a week or 2 but then I think I will need to soak them in salt or vinegar or something to make the color hold onto the fiber. Does anyone have a suggestion?????
ReplyDelete