I saw this video by chance and I like it. I've often dyed wool with leaves and roots and it's always nice to see results like this. Greetings from Germany
Thank you for this wonderful video! I ordered several skeins of your handspun yarn a few years back, including one small ball of crottle and logwood dyed BFL. Every single skein of yarn in the order took on that indescribably delightful smell of the crottle just from making the trip overseas in the same shipping box. I made a cowlneck poncho out of the handspun, undyed Shetland yarn in the order, and it is my favorite thing I have ever crocheted because I can bury my face in that sweet, spicy, gentle aroma when I wear it. I find it to be the most wonderfully comforting smell. And after watching this video I now have realized that the crottle you use is the same type of lichen we have growing everywhere where I live in New Jersey in the U.S. I think I might give crottle dying a go, now that I know that no mordant is needed and I have access to plenty of lichen. Thank you again for this really informative video, and for my truly beautiful handspun yarn!
I’ve been fascinated with lichens for many years. It is magical. I just spun some cotswald locks that I dyed long ago. It still had that lovely scent of lichens. The soft purple color has not faded. I usually don’t enjoy music in videos but I love this flute melody. Thank you for making this video and demonstrating a beautiful relaxed way with natural dyes.
for silk, I soak it overnight in cold bucket of water and vinegar and it dyes nicely then. I look forward to more of these, it is so interesting to me!
I dry the lichen and shake it out to remove as much other material as possible, as bark and dirt can change the dye color. Then I simmer the lichen in water for several hours, turn the stove off and let it sit overnight. The next day I bring it to simmer again for several more hours. Then strain the lichen matter out. Enter the water-soaked yarn at the same temperature as the dye bath and simmer for several hours. The house will smell so fragrant, and the rinsed and dried yarn will as well.
Hello! Beautiful work! For vegetable fibers dyeing, such as cotton, try dipping it in pure milk for a few minutes, then draining it and boiling it for dyeing. This makes the fiber more easily dyed, as well as animal fibers. Cheers!
Hi Sean, yes, I probably could have said a lot more here, but I was trying to focus just on the lichen dyeing. Maybe I'll do another video soon and go into those other things. Thanks for watching!
To remove dust, oils and vegetable matter, also to scour lanolin from wool as it can prevent uptake of the dye. And if you enter dry fiber into a dye bath, the fiber will take up the dye unevenly, so you wet it thoroughly and bring it gradually to the temperature of the dye bath, squeeze out most of the water and enter the fiber into the dye bath.
So interesting! I use usnea lichen to make tincture. (Don’t know if what you are using is the same??) Could you suggest any matter to make a grey dye? As I don’t have Gotlands anymore, my source of grey fibre is now limited, (but I could dye couldn’t I 🤔🤔)
Thank you, from Australia. Lichen is very common and the next thing I will try out. Please can you give me the name of that beautiful music at the beginning of your video . ‘ women of Ireland’ is so lovely...always brings tears to my eyes! Thank you....
This is a great, really detailed video. I'm interested that you boiled the yarn and lichen together - is that traditional in NI? In Scotland I've heard people used to boil the lichen separately to extract it, strained it then used the liquid on the yarn. We also used human urine as mordant.
Hi Alexander, yes I do boil it together. But there are many methods with dyeing. This is just one of them, and is centuries old. Layering it in the pot with the yarn gives a deeper colour than extracting the dye first, although you can do that also. Layering also gives a variagated result with pops of colour in the fibre. It can also be carded together to give a uniform result. When I lift the fibre out of the dye pot, there are really dark portions of fibre that have lichen sitting right on them. The down-side is that it has to be picked out afterwards and that can be quite time consuming. Thanks for your interest! Sarah
Hi, you can wash in hot water, but don't shock the wool. If it's been in cold water, don't put it into really hot water, and vice versa. Hope that helps.
What a beutiful video, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience.I have 2 questions:- how much lichen would you use for 100 gr merino?And:- where do you buy that white big ball carded Merino? Thank you from Spain and sorry about my English. ;)
Hard to say how much lichen, it depends how dark you want it! The ball of merino, you can buy at suppliers like P&M woolcraft or Wingham Wool. Probably there are some similar suppliers in Spain.
Lovely and natural but tbh it doesn’t seem very sustainable or practical using such a slow growing and limited resource such as lichen? And for large scale dye jobs needed for sales for a business? Can it be done? The amount of dyed yarn produced seems so little for amount of lichen used. Unfortunately that’s the catch22 of using all natural.
If you do another PLEASE murder the "Fluter". We have to fight to filter you from him/her. When we were kids, according to Mam, Crottle grew on stones, Lichen grew on trees/wood. ;¬)
please if you dont mind my asking ...which area are you from ? in Donegal I've heard the rock lichen refered to as Crottal, ...I am reasearching into Lichen Dyes used in Scotland Ireland and Wales ..any regional details are greatly appreciated. Do you by any chance know what colours she was obtaining ?
This video was shot on the Donegal/Northern Ireland border. Crottle does grow on rocks around the coast yes. Sometimes it's not easy to lift, but if it's large enough and the weather is damp it lifts off rocks easily enough. I have also seen quite a lot around beaches in the Outer Hebrides. Colours golden/bronzes.
No! Don’t murder the Fluter! Women of Ireland is a tune which reaches the soul if you have a connection with Ireland/are Irish in my opinion. It made the video for me!!
I saw this video by chance and I like it. I've often dyed wool with leaves and roots and it's always nice to see results like this. Greetings from Germany
Thank you for this wonderful video! I ordered several skeins of your handspun yarn a few years back, including one small ball of crottle and logwood dyed BFL. Every single skein of yarn in the order took on that indescribably delightful smell of the crottle just from making the trip overseas in the same shipping box. I made a cowlneck poncho out of the handspun, undyed Shetland yarn in the order, and it is my favorite thing I have ever crocheted because I can bury my face in that sweet, spicy, gentle aroma when I wear it. I find it to be the most wonderfully comforting smell. And after watching this video I now have realized that the crottle you use is the same type of lichen we have growing everywhere where I live in New Jersey in the U.S. I think I might give crottle dying a go, now that I know that no mordant is needed and I have access to plenty of lichen. Thank you again for this really informative video, and for my truly beautiful handspun yarn!
Thanks Cheryl! Happy dyeing!!
I’ve been fascinated with lichens for many years. It is magical. I just spun some cotswald locks that I dyed long ago. It still had that lovely scent of lichens. The soft purple color has not faded. I usually don’t enjoy music in videos but I love this flute melody. Thank you for making this video and demonstrating a beautiful relaxed way with natural dyes.
for silk, I soak it overnight in cold bucket of water and vinegar and it dyes nicely then. I look forward to more of these, it is so interesting to me!
I dry the lichen and shake it out to remove as much other material as possible, as bark and dirt can change the dye color. Then I simmer the lichen in water for several hours, turn the stove off and let it sit overnight. The next day I bring it to simmer again for several more hours. Then strain the lichen matter out. Enter the water-soaked yarn at the same temperature as the dye bath and simmer for several hours. The house will smell so fragrant, and the rinsed and dried yarn will as well.
Brilliant it's so delicious to see the living colour in fibres.
Thank you for a simple introduction to dyeing with lichen thank u
Hello! Beautiful work! For vegetable fibers dyeing, such as cotton, try dipping it in pure milk for a few minutes, then draining it and boiling it for dyeing. This makes the fiber more easily dyed, as well as animal fibers. Cheers!
This is such a lovely video! Thank you very much :)
lovely video! i just wish you'd explain why are you washing and soaking the silk and the wool and basic things like that.
Hi Sean, yes, I probably could have said a lot more here, but I was trying to focus just on the lichen dyeing. Maybe I'll do another video soon and go into those other things. Thanks for watching!
To remove dust, oils and vegetable matter, also to scour lanolin from wool as it can prevent uptake of the dye. And if you enter dry fiber into a dye bath, the fiber will take up the dye unevenly, so you wet it thoroughly and bring it gradually to the temperature of the dye bath, squeeze out most of the water and enter the fiber into the dye bath.
So interesting!
I use usnea lichen to make tincture. (Don’t know if what you are using is the same??)
Could you suggest any matter to make a grey dye?
As I don’t have Gotlands anymore, my source of grey fibre is now limited, (but I could dye couldn’t I 🤔🤔)
Yes, my go-to grey dye is oak leaves which do not require a mordant and give grey from Spring to Autumn.
@@highlandcolours7675 oh thanks! I have an oak tree on our farm so I’ll definitely be giving that a go.
Thank you, from Australia. Lichen is very common and the next thing I will try out. Please can you give me the name of that beautiful music at the beginning of your video . ‘ women of Ireland’ is so lovely...always brings tears to my eyes! Thank you....
Hi Laurel, thanks for your message. There's a link to the music in the notes below the video. I hope you can get that ok. All the best..
This is a great, really detailed video. I'm interested that you boiled the yarn and lichen together - is that traditional in NI? In Scotland I've heard people used to boil the lichen separately to extract it, strained it then used the liquid on the yarn. We also used human urine as mordant.
Hi Alexander, yes I do boil it together. But there are many methods with dyeing. This is just one of them, and is centuries old. Layering it in the pot with the yarn gives a deeper colour than extracting the dye first, although you can do that also. Layering also gives a variagated result with pops of colour in the fibre. It can also be carded together to give a uniform result. When I lift the fibre out of the dye pot, there are really dark portions of fibre that have lichen sitting right on them. The down-side is that it has to be picked out afterwards and that can be quite time consuming.
Thanks for your interest! Sarah
Can you list the sources for those recipes & documentation of crottle/lichen being used as a dye for 2,000 years? Thank you!
'Lichen Dyes' The new source book, Karen Diadick Casselman, Published by Dover.
@@highlandcolours7675 Thank you!! 🧡🙏🏻
Do you rinse in warm or cold water?
Hi, you can wash in hot water, but don't shock the wool. If it's been in cold water, don't put it into really hot water, and vice versa. Hope that helps.
What a beutiful video, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience.I have 2 questions:- how much lichen would you use for 100 gr merino?And:- where do you buy that white big ball carded Merino?
Thank you from Spain and sorry about my English. ;)
Hard to say how much lichen, it depends how dark you want it! The ball of merino, you can buy at suppliers like P&M woolcraft or Wingham Wool. Probably there are some similar suppliers in Spain.
Lovely and natural but tbh it doesn’t seem very sustainable or practical using such a slow growing and limited resource such as lichen? And for large scale dye jobs needed for sales for a business? Can it be done? The amount of dyed yarn produced seems so little for amount of lichen used. Unfortunately that’s the catch22 of using all natural.
Anyone else get really anxious because of the poor bug in the mixture ;;
Thats amazing. I didn't see one.. do tell me where!?
@@highlandcolours7675 On the cotton at around the 9:50 mark.
If you do another PLEASE murder the "Fluter". We have to fight to filter you from him/her.
When we were kids, according to Mam, Crottle grew on stones, Lichen grew on trees/wood.
;¬)
Crottle does also grow on stones. Comments regarding the fluter are noted!
please if you dont mind my asking ...which area are you from ? in Donegal I've heard the rock lichen refered to as Crottal, ...I am reasearching into Lichen Dyes used in Scotland Ireland and Wales ..any regional details are greatly appreciated.
Do you by any chance know what colours she was obtaining ?
This video was shot on the Donegal/Northern Ireland border. Crottle does grow on rocks around the coast yes. Sometimes it's not easy to lift, but if it's large enough and the weather is damp it lifts off rocks easily enough. I have also seen quite a lot around beaches in the Outer Hebrides. Colours golden/bronzes.
@@108ratikala Here';s your book.
www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Cauldron-History-Natural-Scotland/dp/0951013211
No! Don’t murder the Fluter! Women of Ireland is a tune which reaches the soul if you have a connection with Ireland/are Irish in my opinion. It made the video for me!!