[Herbalist] RE: Black Dye

[Wendy Freeman/Otte]

I did some extensive research on the subject of Black a few years ago.  Here are my results, in a nutshell:

On wool: Start, if possible, with black wool.  Use Black Walnut hulls, fermented for 14 days (warning - it stinks worse than vat dyes!).  Use a strong iron postmordant.  Don't use this on silk - it roughens the fiber terribly.

On wool and silk: The ancient favorite was the three-step method: indigo, then madder, then Weld (or another strong yellow).  My Madder pots are cursed, so this never worked as well for me - but it was used for centuries as the only decent (and expensive!) way to make black.  There were some historical comments that indicated that it did not work as well on the new-fangled cotton fiber.

On cotton and silk: The Elizabeth-damned dye of Logwood.  (She DID damn it, forbid it, and swear never to wear it - it ruined her woad/indigo industries.)  The trick with Logwood is the pre-mordant - I use a 5-mordant recipe of alum, copper (sulphate & acetate), tannin (old madder roots are traditional), and tin.  I don't have the recipe with me - but the amounts I think are in that order, most to least.  Wool didn't take as well to Logwood - it came out grey-ish.  But the silk was beautiful.


-H.L. Wyllow MacMuireadhaigh, of Loch Soillier, Ansteorra

>Message: 1
>From: DianaFiona at aol.com
>Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 23:57:18 EDT
>To: herbalist at ansteorra.org
>Subject: [Herbalist] Re: Herbalist digest, Vol 1 #99 - 4 msgs
>Reply-To: herbalist at ansteorra.org
>
>--
>[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
>In a message dated 10/13/01 1:03:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>herbalist-request at ansteorra.org writes:
>
>
>> Greeting to the list,
>       (SNIP)
>...  I'd say our moderator and Pug
>
>> have been doing very well.  I would rather the list not become restriced if
>> it doesn't have to.
>>
>       (G) What she said............
>
>
>> BTW does anyone know of a non-toxic herb that could be used to create a
>> black (or extremely dark) dye?
>>
>       Probably the easiest one to obtain that I know of is black walnut
>hulls. This is the right time of year for them, too! They will, however,
>stain anything they touch, so you need to wear gloves and olds clothes to
>gather them. I haven't done much dying so I'm not sure if they need a mordant
>or not, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that one is unneccessary. My
>folks have black walnut trees all along their property line, so I grew up
>learning to be careful of the mess the hulls make in the fall! :-)
>
>                         Ldy Diana
>
>
>
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>End of Herbalist Digest
>
--
--Wendy F. Otte

"To err is human



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