Friday, January 6, 2017

Natural Dye: Black Beans


I have been doing research and development for an upcoming on-farm project entitled Foraged Fibre. I have big plans for this project but I started with learning how to dye 100% wool with natural dyes.

I followed this Mother Earth News article to mordant a hank of 100% wool.

The dye liquid was made out of the water usually thrown away after soaking black beans. I put 750 grams of black beans into a cooking pot and covered with an inch of water. This soaked for 24 hours and was drained and used as the dye liquid. (The beans were cooked and consumed.) The pre-mordanted wool was placed into the dye liquid and brought to a slow simmer for 1 hour. Once the wool and dye liquid returned to room temperature the wool was rinsed until the liquid ran clear.

The dye liquid was saved and used to dye a second mordanted hank of wool and resulted in a lighter version of the original colour. (Not pictured)



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