But first…
Happy Samhain!
I hope that your day is full of delights. As I said to my friends earlier: Eat some chocolate! Light a candle! Hug your loved ones and fondly remember our dear departed, on this day when the veil thins and they may have a chance to sit at our tables once again.
Is it in the spirit of spooky season to say that there is a colour that I cannot dye with ease?
During the last few weeks I have been dying wool in preparation for Halloween themed markets. It is a struggle to dye wool dark colours. The wool requires much more dye powder, more heat to absorb that powder, so the hand changes, and it felts so easily. When the wool felts it is troublesome, because every following process more difficult and laborious. If only I had a little black sheep’s wool.
“A “colored” or “black” sheep is any sheep that is not completely white. The words colored and black are used interchangeably and could mean a sheep that is black, gray or brown, or even a mostly white sheep with just a spot of black, gray or brown.”
The dying fibre the colour black1 has always been difficult.
It takes lots of dye stuffs, harsh chemicals, or both. Natural dyes have numerous combinations of indigo + madder + iron, logwood + iron, or tannin + iron. Some will layer and layer and layer dyes until the fibre simply cannot absorb any more pigment. None of these options get to the deep true black that we love.
In the past I have used fibre reactive dyes and Simply Black to get a true black. Unfortunately, the chemicals have a lot of run off during the dying process, and their dye mechanisms are less than satisfactory for an environmentally conscious dyer. I prefer to use acid dyes, aka Nylomine Dyes. I find that using solely black acid dye pigment does not get a nice colour. Black pigment, even hair dye, is not truly black. It is abyssal purple and deep space blue. I tried using black + navy + violet and black + charcoal grey to get deep nuanced shades. It requires a lot of dye pigment and heat to get even these lighter than black hues.
Black dyes have had this same problem for a long time.
Suzy the Shepardess notes that “In "The Workwoman’s Guide, By A Lady" (1838)2” Do you remember this book from my “Do Garter Bars Make Garters” article?3 “the author notes in her pattern for a knit armlet that “fine black lamb’s wool is most usually worn, in which case, it should be well steeped in vinegar, and then dried, to prevent the dye from coming off.” She is not referring to the naturally black wool of black lambs, but white wool that has been dyed black.”4 The vinegar is used as a fixing agent in the dyes, but each wool fibre only has so much capacity for dye materials. Once this fixed capacity is exceeded, the dye won’t bind no matter how much heat and vinegar is used. Additionally, it will be terrible to wash out after dying, because lightly bonded chemicals will continue to shed off of the protein fibres.
Growing the black shade that I need would be ideal. Whether it is black sheep, alpaca, rabbit, or goat. Having the black colour to freely mix into other shades of wool would create the ideal tones of colour without requiring lots of chemicals and polluted water. There is more to sheep wool than the pure white clouds we imagine happily prancing through fields and mowing lawns.
Is there a market niche for black wool fibre?
Would fibre enthusiasts love black wool? Black sheep’s wool specifically for black and dark coloured projects. To blend and spin with. Perhaps to have some pre-blended wool to sell as dye blanks. A black Corriedale would be a good breed to start with, because their wool is used for both felting and spinning.
Black mohair would be good, too. Perhaps just a dark gray colour. Something that blends well with other colours, but still has a presence.
I really like her philosophy on nature and respecting the herds and lands that she is a guardian over.
Oh the sheepy colours!
There are creams and goldens and ruddy reds. There are blondes and dusty colours. There is drought soil dust, soaked garden brown, and mulch black. Not to mention the variety of stoney hues of flagstone, granite, and slate. They can be on the same sheep, too. There are solid patches and rowan mixes and recessive genes all around. Some sheep even change colour as they age!5
Knowing this about black dyes and coloured sheep changes that old phrase. Now, the “black sheep of the family,” comes to mean a couple of things. That black sheep, like red heads, are genetically recessive and can have their phenotype (physical expression of genetics) appear almost anywhere. They come from unexpected combinations and have unique . Such sheep are rare, appear in unexpected places, and that their alternative perspective on life should be treasured.
I aspire to get my hands on some lovely black sheep’s wool. Not only will it ease my dying needs, but I can blend it with other, dyed wool and fibres to create unique blends of wool top. In my post “Research All The Way Down”6 I show a lovely Gotland sheep’s wool. It is black and has beautiful grey highlights that are dyed rainbow hues.
The blends that I imagine in my mind are lighter, contain dark stripes, or are blended so thuroughly that they become grey.
I would use some black and gray wool to make my little black cat kits, and dye the grey wool deep rich midnight tones. I would blend the black wool with brilliant hues and silks to imbue nebula in my wool top and wool batts. Oh, the things that I would do with some coloured wool.
Let me know if you come across some beautifully coloured sheep wool. In all senses of the phrase.
https://www.suzy-the-shepherdess.com/colored-sheep/
Might be this one, but if I recall correctly two were released per year. A Workwoman’s Guide 1838 https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/workwomansguide00hale
https://www.suzy-the-shepherdess.com/colored-sheep/
https://crosswindsfarm.blogspot.com/2011/08/now-thats-sheep-of-different-color.html