Black Beans

When I went to the West Coast in December, I visited a store called Maiwa. They sell all sorts of textile related supplies, including dye supplies. I found a book called Wild Color by Jenny Dean. It grabbed my imagination and I've been dreaming all winter about dyeing yarn with wildflowers, tree bark and foodstuffs!

I just couldn't wait any longer and I had to try dyeing some yarn. The first dyestuff I chose was black beans (I saw some cool results on Ravelry, so I had to try it myself).

I bought a pound of dry black beans.

I soaked them in cold water for roughly 48 hours,

and then, I made chili.

But before the beans went into the chili pot, I carefully ladled off the purplish liquid onto my yarn. The night before, I had mordanted my yarn with alum (a chemical that helps the colour stick to the fibre) and cream of tartar (helps brighten the colour).

Then I let my superwash merino/nylon sock yarn soak in the bean water for another night. The result?

A lovely steel-blue yarn! :)

Wow. I think I might need to add this to my list of fibre-y addictions! But as my cousin said, I'm not adding a new addiction, I'm just expanding my existing one. I'll be posting more of my experiments throughout the summer, so stay tuned!

I've already started a pair of socks from it :) (Cables and corrugations from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters)

Which natural dye should I try next? Logwood? Onion Skins?