Natural Dye Lab Report
Natural Material Used
Raspberries/ Water were used to dye the natural wool. Tartaric Acid, Soda Ash, Alum, and Iron were used as mordants to the dye.
Predictions
I think raspberries will be effective as a dye material as they easily stain in their natural state, at least to a minor degree. I think specific mordants will alter the color but also how well the color dyes the wool as well. I am unfamiliar with all the mordants and don’t feel I can make informed predictions, but from looking at past experiments I think there will be at least one or two more ‘dramatic’ changes in color, especially a warm color like red/pink from the raspberries. Other contributing factors to the dye that seem most (in my predictions) will be time and heat. Longer time in the dye, and a longer time in hot to warm dye would be more effective than less time or even a longer time without heat. As far as something like the volume of water, I think they would need to be enough to keep the dye submerged for better results but using more water could also dilute the color of the dye as the process begins, so I am unsure of how this could effect it. But, even diluted, more water that is warm and given time to soak would be more effective than less water.
Process
First, about two days before I moved on to anything else, I washed the wool carefully. I broke it into sections to include wool that would be washed and dyed/ not dyed, and wool that would be unwashed and dyed/ not dyed. I gently did so and left them to dry on a towel untouched except to see whether they had finished drying. I was hesitant to start because I was confused by the process that we went over, they seemed to do things differently or at different times and so I was unsure of where to start first.
Second, I made the dye, as I assumed it would take the longest to make/ do. Boiling about 12 oz of raspberries in a smaller pot of water filled over half way, around three cups. This overall process of extracting the color from the berries took between 1.5 to 2 hours, the pot was left to simmer about 1.5 hours in, to keep the dye warm, but nearly all the color had been extracted by then.
While, the dye was boiling I prepared the experiment by grouping together the necessary items, cups, spoons, mordants etc. I labeled each plastic cup with a letter starting with A, then wrote under that what mordant would be used and if the wool was washed or not. I paired the piece of wool and piece of muslin that would be in the cup to dye. I put water in the cups and when the dye was almost done with extraction, I mixed the mordants with the water in the cups all with separate spoons. The mordants Soda Ash and Tartaric Acid changed the colors of the dye more dramatically as predicted.
Then, once the dye was extracted, I moved it from the pot to a separate dish. I put the wool in the mordants and then warm dye soon after. I let it soak for around six hours. I took out a piece of wool to see it was not dyed as the water seemed to go right through the wool when it was lifted out of the cup and took the color with it. This was what happened to all the cups. I let them soak overnight.
In the morning, the wool had not been much impacted by overnight, so I left it in a few hours after ten. Around noon, I took out the wool and left it to dry on a small towel. It took a day or so for it to dry mostly, but it was still moderately damp.
Results
Conclusion
Presentation
Process pictures
