Solar dying II

As most places around the country (except Alaska) we have had a hot, hot summer. It's been great for solar dying. These are the two jars I showed in my last post, the one on the right is layered annatto and osage orange and the one on the left is layered with cochineal, osage orange and then madder root on top. I left them around 10 days in the hot sun. A little too long because I have some white spots on top of the wool that I think is mold. I seem to able to pull it off.

This is how they looked after I washed them, a rich and beautiful color. You can see the cochineal at the bottom, some spots very dark, then the osage orange gold swirled in, and on top a rustier red.

The annatto and osage orange weren't quite as dramatic, but very rich colors swirled around.

The colors match my marigolds.

Next I thought I'd try red onion skins. So I layered the wool with the skins.

This is what it looked like after a week in the hot sun.

And this is it rinsed out, where the leaves touched the fabric it was a gray blue with a dull tan around it. Not as pretty as it sounds. So I rinsed it in ammonia.

Now it's bright gold with weird green spots. It will probably end up in another dye bath the end of summer.

I laid theses black-eye-Susan's on my pew in the dye studio while I was getting ready to hang them for drying, when I turned around to get them they were so beautiful I snapped a pictures.