The plant materials have been soaking in distilled water over night. Soak the yarn in clean water for 1 hour before dyeing. Never put dry fibers into a dye bath. It will absorb the dye unevenly, resulting in a variegated colored yarn.
Pour the plant materials and the water they were soaking in into a non-aluminum pot. Bring the dye bath to a simmer (180 degrees) for 20 minutes. Strain or remove the plant material and add the yarn. Add enough distilled water to cover the yarn. Simmer for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, remove the yarn and rinse in clean water, or you can let the yarn and water cool until tomorrow before removing. Hang to dry.
If you plan to post-mordant the yarn, which is optional, remove the yarn from the dye bath and place it in the post-mordant bath for up to 20 minutes. I took a bundle of yarn from the black bean dye and put it in a jar with a copper post-mordant. The blue yarn changed to a deep green. A delightful result!!
The next step in our process is WEAVING!! So if you made a cardboard loom with us several weeks ago, get it back out. We will begin learning about prepping the loom and several weaving techniques.
