Spring (finally!) means new dye experiments

I had my son home for a get-well day Monday, and took advantage of the lovely weather to try a few new dye-stuffs. I had the occasion to visit Midtown Global Market on Thursday last week, and picked up two packages of annatto seeds at El Burrito Mercado, vaguely remembering their usefulness from something or other I'd read. While searching online for technique tips I also found some information about dried black beans as a dye source, so I snagged some of those on Friday. 

The Annatto: some of these were used in the first dye pot (the darker ones) and some were simply soaked for future use (the brighter.) I suspect the used seeds still have ALOT of dye left in them. This quantity will last a while.

I did this in several batches, using a variety of materials. I put about a tablespoon and a half of the seeds, which had soaked for an hour, into a small muslin bag tied shut. I boiled that in an aluminum pot. The first batch of swatches (the lighter batch, on the left, top photo) cooked for about twenty minutes. After the first batch I added some baking soda to the water, to bring the pH up a bit -- maybe a half teaspoon. After those swatches had cooked for about 20 minutes, I immersed them in a vinegar and water solution. The vinegar immediately transformed the hue into a richer, pumpkin color. (Batch on the right, top photo.) 

In the next photo (above, lower) you can see the piece of garden fence I used as a makeshift drying rack, for the lengths of flax and raw silk I dyed, and some of the smaller bits and ribbons. 

In this photo, you can see the variety of shades produced by the annatto. Variations ranged from cooking time to substrate, to the addition of the vinegar bath. Upper right is the doily I dyed towards the bottom of the batch, once the dye had cooked down to something fairly intense. Below it on the right is the muslin bag that held the seeds. The flax is in the center, looking kinda scraggly, and the silk is in the baggie on the upper left. 

In all I'm happy with the results, and curious as to whether some reds could be coaxed out of the seeds with a different preparation. 

Below are the black bean results, I didn't spend much time on this yesterday. 

Another doily, which soaking in a lukewarm bean bath (after boiling the beans for about 20 minutes) turned a lovely shade of lavender. I tied some of the beans, dry, into dry swatches. Got a cute little tie-dye effect, though it was a boring process getting them prepped. 

In all a fun experiment!