Natural Dyeing Part 3

Ok, this is really from my second day of experimenting with dyes and techniques, but it is the third post since I already posted Day 1 and Day 3. On this day we did some experimenting. I tried to make the process easier and a bit more kid friendly. I made a crucial mistake though. I did not pre-soak in the mordant. My colors washed away much more and are not as deep as they could be.

Celery Leaves

We started with Hazel chopping some celery leaves. We were hoping to get some green yarn. Unfortunately, it did not seem to work for us. I don't know if the pre-soak would have affected it or not. Half way through the day I added baby spinach with more vinegar and water, but it still didn't do anything. I actually re-dyed this yarn on Day 3. My new method is to put the chopped vegetable, fruit, flower in the jar with the mordant and then add boiling water. This way I did not have to use the stove (I have an electric tea kettle) and Hazel could help more.

Purple Cabbage

The next experiment was really neat. I had read on Poppytalk (which I found through Pineterest) that using vinegar or salt with red cabbage gave different colors. (She does a neat table runner with natural dyed fabrics--I definitely want to try this at some point!) I wanted to try this. This is actually why I didn't pre-soak. I wasn't sure what to do with the salt at the time. Now I have found recipes on how to do it (on Pioneer Thinking). And the neat thing is I was telling a family I tutor for about the experiment and the student I work with said, "Oh, I know why. We just learned this in chemistry class." She was so excited to see a real life application of it. It has to do with the pH of red cabbage. For more information to use as a lesson or possible understand yourself check out this explanation on About.com (plus it is really a neat science experiment there).

Purple Cabbage 1) Salt Mordant 2) Vinegar Mordant

 Look at the different colors you can get with purple cabbage!! I was so amazed. (It might be worth it to try making the green with the ammonia as the mordant. I just don't know if it will work on wool.)

1) Purple Cabbage with Vinegar, 2) Purple Cabbage with Salt, 3) Celery Leaves/Spinach

Since I did not pre-soak with a mordant, I rinsed with a mordant or should I say post-soaked in a mordant. I do not recommend doing it this way. It is definitely worth taking the 20 minutes to pre-soak. Please learn from my mistake!!

Same order as picture above with original colored skein on top.

As you can see the celery leaves and spinach did not change the color for us. Oh, well. Day 3, I had more success with this skein. Hazel had asked to dye some blue, so I'm glad the purple cabbage and salt worked. Next time I will definitely pre-soak though!! My hopes is for a rainbow sweater for Hazel from all this great yarn! When we went back to Drumlin Farm this week I bought two more skeins. I may retry the red cabbage with pre-soaking and I may buy a good natural green dye since none of my experiments worked.

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Teacher Gifts, Last Day of School

Today (Thursday) is Hazel's last day of school. It is hard to believe another school year has gone by. This is our last parent/child class together. Next year she will be in the nursery program and I will have to leave her there!! We have so enjoyed the Waldorf parent/child class the past year and a half. And we love our teacher and teaching assistant. So we made them each a gift for the end of the year. I know there have been loads of teacher appreciation gifts floating around, so I am hosting a link party to collect them all in one place. So please come share yours...after all, CRAFTY MOMS SHARE!!

I found at our local Michaels these beautiful felted bowls on clearance. I bought four of them. I used one to be a bird's nest for Hazel for play. I found a tan one as well and decided it could also be a bird's nest, so we are giving it to Hazel's teacher. Hazel painted two wooden eggs for the nest and a paper maiche bird. I made some needle felted birds as well.

For the assistant teacher we are giving her a bowl as well, but we filled it with toy fruit. I needle felted some and Hazel painted some paper maiche fruit.

Hazel is a bit jealous of the fruit bowl. I guess I need to make her some fruit for my other bowl. She wants to keep it in her kitchen. I figured they could use it as a centerpiece on the snack table when they do not have flowers.

Ok, your turn to share!! What are you doing for teacher gifts? What have you done in the past?

Banana Muffins

We had some ripe bananas so we made some banana muffins. It is a relatively easy recipe. I changed it from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

Mix:
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup ground almond meal flour
1 cup oatmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 chopped/ground walnuts

Hazel mixed the dry ingredients while on the phone with my sister! I had to hold the bowl for her.

In a different bowl beat an egg and then mix in:
1 cup nonfat milk
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cups grated/pureed carrots
2 overripe bananas mashed

Hazel stopped helping at this point but came back to help scoop into the pan. Mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. The batter is a bit thick. Then spray a muffin pan and preheat oven to 400. Scoop into muffin pan. Then bake for 20 minutes. Cool for a bit before eating.

Enjoy!!

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Happy Family Times #9-- A Family Walk

Have you done something fun with your family lately? Kelly over at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I have this great link party to share those wonderful times. We hope to inspire all of us to have more quality time with our families. So have you gone to a game, cooked dinner or danced around the living room this week, please share your great ideas below!!

This week we took a much needed family walk around the block on Friday evening--well late afternoon since Hazel goes to bed so early it feels like evening. Hazel started out in her red wagon and then she wanted to pull it (this was at the house right next door to us). We are lucky because we live on a wide street that basically has two circles a small one and a large one. The large one you have to go on a main street which I don't usually do with Hazel even if it does have a sidewalk, but the small one is almost half a mile around and Hazel loves to walk it or ride in her stroller or wagon. It is always just enough to decompress Daddy after his long work week. Now that the weather is nice we will be doing these much more often! Oh, and Hazel did go back in her wagon again before we got home. Some days we look for different colors or animals. Some days Hazel and I will sing while we walk, but on this walk we just enjoyed the quiet and the decompression of Daddy's stress!

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~just crafts will be deleted since this is to share family times

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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Multicultural Monday: Natural Dyeing Part 2

Well, I have to admit, I was thinking about making Multicultural Monday a monthly thing. I feel like I have lots to share and never have the time to share it all, but then while doing research for my natural dyes, I found a great activity to share with you that tied right into my natural dyeing. (If you missed day one of my natural dyeing experiment, check it out here. Post 3 or day 2 is here.)

Besides of course the history you can share from China, Native Americans, Egyptian, as well as Europeans and the Colonists of America, I found this great short lesson/experiment on Teacher Vision. It has a nice introduction about how the Native Americans did natural dyeing. Then it has a short activity dyeing fabrics in plastic bags using carrots, beets and red cabbage. They have the student rinse and then use detergents to see which stays in the longest. You could also change it to different mordants (ie. white distilled vinegar, salt, alum). Some mordants will change the colors as well.

To make it even more educational, you can use this lesson from Teacher Vision titled Native Americans Contribution to American Culture. (Wow, some interesting things to think about there.) Also Folk Tales of Northeast Native Americans also from Teacher Vision. Here is a link to Teacher Vision's Native American lessons. (Can you tell I love learning about Native American cultures?)

1) Blackberries, 2) Sunflower Seeds/Blackberries/Beets, 3) Beets

Anyway, back to my craft. This is actually day 3 of my natural dyeing experiments. I wanted to share this one with you since it uses the carrots and beets from the activity mentioned above. To learn about my experience with red cabbage, you will have to wait until later in the week!

I did a lot of experimenting today with dyes and methods. I tried orange marigold flowers (from Hazel's fairy garden), sunflower petals and sunflower seeds, carrots, blackberries, and beets. Beets definitely were the most successful. Half way through the day I decided the sunflower seeds had not done anything, so I threw the yarn in with the blackberry mixture. At the end, the blackberries hadn't had enough time to do much to this yarn so I threw it into the beet dye and took it out maybe 10-15 minutes later. It came out a pale pink (see picture above--middle skein). The sunflower petals did not seem to be doing much either, so I added more and tried putting them in the food processor. At the end I threw them in with the marigold petals since it was a bit darker.  Oh, and our day started with breaking one of our big jars when we poured the beet dye in off the stove. Red dye all over my kitchen. Not fun!

I also experimented with method the past two days. Instead of always cooking the dye, I tried putting the fruit/vegetable or flower in with the mordant and then added boiling water. I did this to make it more kid friendly. Hazel just had to stay away when I added the boiling water. Today I did try to cook the beets, but as I explained I broke the glass so I went with the boiling water method.

1) Carrots, 2) Marigold, 3) Sunflower Petals/Marigolds

In this picture you can see the piece of original color so you can see all of them have a slight new shade. I think if I was to do this again I would let them sit over night in these dyes.

I will post Day 2 on Friday!! My mother has agreed to knit Hazel a striped sweater with all my home-dyed yarn!! She will actually finish the sweater unlike me!!

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