Dyeing Wool With Sumac & Giveaway Announcement

I have been having too much fun experimenting with Natural Dyes. This past week, I tried another, Sumac. (non poisonous, of course)

Autumn is a perfect time of year for foraging, I love having  an excuse to walk around the woods and the tree rows bordering the hay field. It didn't take long to fill up some baskets with Sumac- berry heads.

Heating up the Berry Heads

You would think that the color that you get from these red berries, would be red, but it turns out you get a tan/beige coloring.

Out of the Dye Pot-Before the Rinse

It is a ten to one ratio (sumac being 10). One of the nice things about the Sumac is you only need to prewet the fibers before adding to the dye bath.  There is no need to pre mordant the fiber, as I had to do, with the Goldenrod and Pokeberry.

You can add the wool to an iron, after bath to get a grey color, but since I have plenty of Natural Colored Greys from the sheep, I chose to leave it the tan color.



Drying after the Rinse Baths

I used yarn that I spun from Corriedale roving that I purchased at the Michigan Fiber Festival.

And speaking of Fiber, I wanted to announce that I am going to be doing a Giveaway, later this week, which includes a Drop Spindle and some of our wool roving. So check back in on Friday!