Experimental Dyeing with Poke Berries and Acetic Dye

Hi!! Welcome to this fun Experiment! Yesterday I picked around 7lbs of Ripe Pokeberries for a Natural Dye Experiment. Here are the results. My Post in order.. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook to get the latest.

The biggest Dye Vat Ever(for me)! It's Pokeberries!! I can't wait to start dyeing with it! I picked about 7lbs of berries, brought them inside, plucked the berries from the stems, put stems into separate bag for later, plucked berries straight into my food mill, ran the food mill to extract as much as I could, then put the seed mush into a large sieve, strained out all the remaining juices, then back to stems, ran water through the stems bag until pretty clear... There's my juice.. I will be dyeing some of my best fibers tomorrow. I learned of a technique to dye and make it colorfast. It's not going to be light fast but it will hold color as long as you don't let it sit in the sun for long periods. Wearing the articles outside won't hurtbit.. just don't leave it in a window for long periods like most dyes. Tomorrow will be a dye day!! Ohh.. I am keeping the seeds to see if I can plant them for more harvests.. A localized easy harvest spot.. still more research to be done on the seeds. Fun! Oh I got eaten up by mosquitos and I think I got a little poison ivy.. but that's ok.. just a little annoying.. thankfully poison ivy doesn't really hurt me much.

Here are todays Dye Experiments with the Poke Berry and Acetic Acid..

Poke berry dye experiment SUCCESS!!! I am soo happy with these colors! This is part of a long test with poke berries. Poke berries & acetic acid. All of these used acetic acid. #1) Golden Color was achieved using Romney Wool dyed in an aluminum pot. I love the gold tones! Will try this again and see if we get a repeat. #2) Light Mauve Firestar was achieved in a cold soak. The darker one was left in longer. Gorgeous color! #3) Wensleydale Lamb Locks and Shetland×Coopworth Lamb Locks dyed in a Cornishware pot on low heat for over an hour. Super dark burgundy (the deep tones are not showing up as well in the photo). #4) Firestar & Star Bright added to the cook pot at the end of the cooking period. Firestar is an amazing copper color. The Star Bright has a nice fushia color with copper on the sides of the star bright?? This was fun and barely touched my Giant Dye Vat!!