Madder the Inexhaustible Root–Part Two: Pink

If you read my last post, you may be wondering why I wasn’t totally content with my orange linen, as bright and cheery as it was. Basically it’s because I wanted pink. Light pink, to be exact. Light pink 40/2 linen, to be exact, and lots of it. Why? Well…!

A fortunate side-effect of my successful show with Amanda Quinby at the Shelburne Arts Co-op in Shelburne Falls in October was that I sold all of my usual inventory of naturally dyed linen bookmarks and hand-bound books with hand-woven cloth covers. Hence, I need to weave more! My main objective with this madder exhaust project was to create light pink 40/2 linen yarn for weaving heart-motif bookmarks in Huck Lace. I must confess that all the other lovely colors I obtained were just happy by-products in my quest for pink. Continue reading “Madder the Inexhaustible Root–Part Two: Pink” →

Madder the Inexhaustible Root–Part One: Orange

Earlier in November, another teacher at school wanted to dye some cloth to create kid-sized monarch butterfly wings as part of her classroom study of butterflies. Her initial dyebaths, composed largely of marigolds combined with some orange cosmos and wild bedstraw roots, had not yielded the color she wanted. I suggested over-dyeing the cloth with madder roots, even though they weren’t from our garden at school. She decided to use some chopped roots that I had bought from Aurora Silk a few years ago, and was pleased with her results.

I asked her to save me the exhausted dyebath and the roots, which she very kindly did. I spent every spare moment of the next two weeks happily creating various shades of pink and orange on linen and cotton-linen blend yarns. I was well-satisfied with my efforts! Here they are:

drying rack madder yarns Continue reading “Madder the Inexhaustible Root–Part One: Orange” →

Rinsing and Drying Madder Roots

Today was a very productive day. I had the day off. It was mostly sunny and warm. And, despite weeks of frosts, the ground was still workable. We’re supposed to get lows in the teens and highs only in the 30s later this week, so I was very motivated to take care of some outdoor tasks before the really cold weather rolls in.

I already wrote about digging up approximately one third of my madder bed a couple weeks ago. I already rinsed some of the madder roots I dug up, and they are already dried. I didn’t document that earlier batch. This morning I rinsed the rest of what I had dug up the other day.

Here is a brown paper grocery bag full of dried but still dirt-covered roots. I hadn’t planned to dry them first, it’s just that I didn’t manage to rinse them off before they dried. Fortunately I didn’t have any issues with mold.

dirt-covered madder roots

Continue reading “Rinsing and Drying Madder Roots” →