Logwood

Earlier this year, we gave a slice of Logwood to our wood working friend.  He turns handles for fishing rods and likes to use unique and exotic wood.  I had a chunk of logwood from my natural dyeing days--haven't done any natural dyeing for years. 

 After he turned the small chunk, he collected the tailings and gave them to me in a jar.  I don't even remember when he gave it to me.  I placed some wool yarn in the tailings, filled with water and placed the jar on a shelf in the garage and there it sat for weeks, months--who knows?  Not me!

The other day as I was rummaging through my fiber stash, I found a roving of dyeable cotton--it is well aged for sure!  It was time to put this cotton to the test. 

In the jar I placed another hunk of dyeable cotton to sit for weeks just to see what happens.

 Usually, it's hard to dye cotton--it's a long process for regular cotton.  After I had pulled the yarn from the jar (that had sat for many moons), I decided to place in some of the dyeable cotton sliver in with the tailings--it sat overnight in the heat outside.

the dark brown in the middle of these cotton slivers is the yarn I pulled from the jar that had been siting for long time-what a color!  was hoping for black!  I didn't add any mordant or chemical to enhance the dye--it's just natural dye experiement.  So surprised to see the color develop overnight.  

I'm excited to spin one of these slivers;  it's not a lovely glowing color but it's interesting.

Now, I've got the itch to do more natural dyeing!   I found a jar filled with osage orange tailings--now, that should be a lovely color.