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Solar Dyeing: Try a New Dye Method for Your Plant Fiber
Learn the ins and outs of solar dyeing hemp and cotton fiber using Cushings dyes.
As spring arrives and new green leaves begin to pop out on the trees, flowers are poking their heads out of the ground and the sun starts rising earlier each morning. What a wonderful time to be outdoors among spring plants while solar dyeing plant fibers for spinning. Add water, reagents, and fiber or yarn to a jar and set it in the sun. Then it’s time to go in and have a nice breakfast while the sun does the work for you.
One of the most rewarding solar-dyeing experiences began one day last spring as I was spinning with a couple of friends on a neighbor’s patio, sitting six feet apart. Lynn handed me several skeins of handspun cotton yarn. Someone had given the yarn to her several years before; it was definitely a beginner’s attempt to spin cotton, but the yarn was stable. After I insisted several times that Lynn keep the yarn, she said she needed someone to adopt the yarn who would put it to good use. Appreciating the effort and frustration that must have gone into making that yarn, I knew I had to create something from it. It was lumpy and bumpy and tied with knots in many places. The yarn was spun from several different batches of cotton, and each skein was a different white color.
I held back the whitest skein to use as accent and added two skeins to a green dyebath. Sitting in our Arizona sun, it took only two hours to give me a nice warm green, but due to the different types of cotton, I got two different shades of green. The third skein I submerged into the same jar with the leftover dye. The next morning, this last skein was yet another shade of green. I wet-finished the yarn and waited until it was fully dry before heading to my weaving room. I was so pleased with the result that I quickly wove off a lovely scarf.
The nice thing about this solar-dyeing method for plant fibers is that it does not have to be a technical or scientific project. The following instructions can be tinkered with; they are a basic recipe that you can add to or subtract from. This approach is not for professional dyers who want to get precision-dyed fiber consistently. No, it is for those of us who want to have fun and play with colors.
Joan was able to dye several spring greens on cotton with a little work and a little love. Photo by Matt Graves
The Dyes
For years, I used dyes that required sodium carbonate, a lot of salt, and many gallons of rinse water to create colorful plant fibers and yarns that would not bleed. Living in Arizona where water is precious, it always bothered me to waste so much water.
When Sara at Red Stone Glen in Pennsylvania asked me to teach a workshop, she also asked if I would teach students to use the dyes they carry made by W. Cushing & Co. “But that’s a union dye,”* I said. Sara corrected me, explaining that Cushing had a direct dye for cellulose fibers and an acid dye for protein fibers, and she sent me a couple jars of direct dye to try. To my amazement, the dye process was easy and only took a little salt in addition to the dye, and when I rinsed the dyed fiber, it didn’t bleed! I was sold and have used only Cushing’s Direct Dyes ever since for my plant fibers and yarns.
As with any type of dye, you discover shortcuts, recipes, and tolerances through experience and practice. I share my method here for solar dyeing.
Getting Started
First, you will need to gather some equipment and prepare your plant fibers and yarns. Cotton must be scoured in order to dye consistently as it has oil and waxes that protect the fiber. This protective layer inhibits dye absorption, but it can be removed by simmering the cotton in water with a little detergent, such as Dawn. Hemp, flax, and most other plant fibers do not need to be scoured before dyeing because their fiber was previously protected by parts of the plant
As spring arrives and new green leaves begin to pop out on the trees, flowers are poking their heads out of the ground and the sun starts rising earlier each morning. What a wonderful time to be outdoors among spring plants while solar dyeing plant fibers for spinning. Add water, reagents, and fiber or yarn to a jar and set it in the sun. Then it’s time to go in and have a nice breakfast while the sun does the work for you.
One of the most rewarding solar-dyeing experiences began one day last spring as I was spinning with a couple of friends on a neighbor’s patio, sitting six feet apart. Lynn handed me several skeins of handspun cotton yarn. Someone had given the yarn to her several years before; it was definitely a beginner’s attempt to spin cotton, but the yarn was stable. After I insisted several times that Lynn keep the yarn, she said she needed someone to adopt the yarn who would put it to good use. Appreciating the effort and frustration that must have gone into making that yarn, I knew I had to create something from it. It was lumpy and bumpy and tied with knots in many places. The yarn was spun from several different batches of cotton, and each skein was a different white color.
I held back the whitest skein to use as accent and added two skeins to a green dyebath. Sitting in our Arizona sun, it took only two hours to give me a nice warm green, but due to the different types of cotton, I got two different shades of green. The third skein I submerged into the same jar with the leftover dye. The next morning, this last skein was yet another shade of green. I wet-finished the yarn and waited until it was fully dry before heading to my weaving room. I was so pleased with the result that I quickly wove off a lovely scarf.
The nice thing about this solar-dyeing method for plant fibers is that it does not have to be a technical or scientific project. The following instructions can be tinkered with; they are a basic recipe that you can add to or subtract from. This approach is not for professional dyers who want to get precision-dyed fiber consistently. No, it is for those of us who want to have fun and play with colors.
Joan was able to dye several spring greens on cotton with a little work and a little love. Photo by Matt Graves
The Dyes
For years, I used dyes that required sodium carbonate, a lot of salt, and many gallons of rinse water to create colorful plant fibers and yarns that would not bleed. Living in Arizona where water is precious, it always bothered me to waste so much water.
When Sara at Red Stone Glen in Pennsylvania asked me to teach a workshop, she also asked if I would teach students to use the dyes they carry made by W. Cushing & Co. “But that’s a union dye,”* I said. Sara corrected me, explaining that Cushing had a direct dye for cellulose fibers and an acid dye for protein fibers, and she sent me a couple jars of direct dye to try. To my amazement, the dye process was easy and only took a little salt in addition to the dye, and when I rinsed the dyed fiber, it didn’t bleed! I was sold and have used only Cushing’s Direct Dyes ever since for my plant fibers and yarns.
As with any type of dye, you discover shortcuts, recipes, and tolerances through experience and practice. I share my method here for solar dyeing.
Getting Started
First, you will need to gather some equipment and prepare your plant fibers and yarns. Cotton must be scoured in order to dye consistently as it has oil and waxes that protect the fiber. This protective layer inhibits dye absorption, but it can be removed by simmering the cotton in water with a little detergent, such as Dawn. Hemp, flax, and most other plant fibers do not need to be scoured before dyeing because their fiber was previously protected by parts of the plant[PAYWALL] that have already been stripped away.
Equipment for solar dyeing. Photo by Joan Ruane
Equipment
Scouring: Net laundry bag to keep unspun fiber contained; enamel or stainless steel pot; heat source; stir spoon; detergent, such as Dawn; and pot holders if needed.
Dyeing: Enamel or stainless steel pot with steamer rack; large stir spoons; measuring cups and spoons; rinse bucket; mask and rubber gloves. You will also need water, salt, Cushing’s Direct Dyes for cellulose fibers, and 2-ounce increments of plant fiber (scoured if cotton).
Solar Dyeing Only: Dyeing containers. (I use large plastic dog-biscuit containers, but gallon-sized glass jars are preferable.)
Handpainting Only: Dye-safe surface covered in newspaper or paper towels; several small widemouthed jars; and sponge paintbrushes.
Note: Equipment used for dyeing should never be used for food preparation. Wear a mask whenever handling dye in powder form.
Scouring Cotton
- I choose to work with only 2 ounces of fiber or yarn at a time when dyeing. Place about 2 ounces of fiber in a net laundry bag. If working with yarn, make sure the skein is tied loosely in four places.
- Fill the pot about half full of water, place on the stove, and bring to a simmer. Add the detergent, stir, and add the fiber or yarn, gently poking it below the surface.
- After simmering the fiber for 15 to 20 minutes, drain the water and rinse with clean water to remove any detergent. The scoured fiber is ready to dye.
If you want even, brilliant colors, cotton should be scoured prior to dyeing. Photo by Joan Ruane
Joan’s Basic Solar-Dyeing Method for Plant Fibers
- Mix ¼ teaspoon of Cushing’s Direct Dye powder into about ½ cup of very hot water; stir until dissolved. Fill the gallon jar one-half to three-quarters full of water, add 1 teaspoon of uniodized salt, and stir to dissolve the salt. Add the dissolved dye to the jar, then put in 2 ounces of fiber.
- Sometimes the fiber will take up the dye immediately, and at other times, it will take all day in the sun to get the color you desire. Remove the fiber with gloved hands as soon as it is the color you want and squeeze the excess dye solution back into the jar. You can continue adding and removing fiber until the dyebath is exhausted.
- Fiber dyed with this Cushing product has to be heat-treated to set the dye. Place a steamer rack and a little water in a pot, lay the dyed fiber on the rack, and steam for 15 to 20 minutes.
- Fill a rinse bucket with water, add ¼ cup of salt, and stir to dissolve. Submerge the steamed fiber until is saturated, lift it out of the bucket squeezing out excess water, and lay it out or hang it to dry.
Get a closer look! Click on any image in the gallery below to open it in full-screen mode.
Clockwise from top left: Hemp sliver during handpainting. Hemp sliver and yarns after handpainting. Joan reuses dog-biscuit containers for solar dyeing. Cotton sliver that was not scoured before dyeing; it took all day in the direct sunlight and lots of shaking to get this much color to penetrate into the cotton sliver. Photos by Joan Ruane
Handpainted Sliver
- Scoured cotton can be hung to dry slightly, and I like painting hemp or flax dry for deeper colors. Lay out the fiber on a table covered with newspaper or paper toweling.
- Using small widemouthed jars, mix about ¼ teaspoon of dye into ¾ cup of boiling water with ½ teaspoon of salt dissolved in the water. Repeat for each of the colors you want to use.
- With a sponge paintbrush, apply the dye solution to the sliver, making sure it is well soaked and the dye saturates the sliver. If you want the colors to blend, then paint the colors close together, but if you want them distinctive, leave just a little space between each color.
- Leave the painted sliver to sit for an hour, then steam it to set the dye, and rinse in salt water (see step 4 of Joan’s Basic Solar-Dyeing Method); hang to dry.
Exploring plant fibers and solar dyeing is great fun. I hope you experiment and create a method that works for you. It is pretty hard for anything to go wrong as long as you add a little salt, some love, and a lot of sunshine.
Dyed fiber that's hanging to dry. Photo by Joan Ruane
Notes
From W. Cushing & Co.: “For many years Cushing’s Perfection Dye was a ‘union’ type dye, designed to be suitable for a variety of plant, animal, and synthetic fibers. In response to the changing availability of raw materials and to increase the effectiveness and ease of use of our dyes, we reformulated them into two types: acid and direct.
“Acid dyes are suitable for wool, mohair, and nylon. Direct dyes are the better choice for cottons and cellulose materials, plus linen and rayon. Silk dyes best with one type or the other, depending on the particular characteristics of the silk.”
Joan offers a few tips she's learned during her teaching travels about keeping solar dyeing easy. Click below to get your download.
Solar Notes from the Road PDF Download
Click here to get the PDF download of Solar Notes from The Road.
Resources
First a professional teacher and then a spinner, Joan S. Ruane has been teaching spinning classes around the world since 1980. Her videos can be streamed through taprootvideo.com, and you can learn more at cottonspinning.com. If you discover new ways of solar dyeing, Joan would love to hear about it at [email protected]!
