Dyeing wool with Van Dyke Brown?

[ozzy1977]

Hi I recently found a couple of wool blankets in a skip, one is cream in colour, and I want to make it brown.. I have a bag of van dyke brown crystals in the shed which are made from walnut shells. would it be a case of making up a solution with the crystals and soaking the banket then rinsing it, or have I got to use something to fix it?

Cheers

Chris

 

[Macaroon]

I tried for ages to find a way to do exactly what you propose, but after mucho researcho and advice from Toddy, amongst others, I had to give it up. The first reason is that wool needs to be died with an acid dye and the van dyke crystalls are apparently not the correct Ph for this; Toddy also wrote an explanation of the difference between a dye and a stain which I'd have to search out before I could explain it but the van dyke crystalls are a stain and therefore would not penetrate the fibres of the wool, but sit around them and therefore wear off the fabric in use - they would also be very messy to use in the quantity required to dye two whole blankets.

I got around it by using Dylon acid dye in a plastic dustbin, it took about £25 rat's worth of the stuff to get a decent OG colour and a good few Kilos of salt and was a good 8 hours work with all the mixing, soaking, rinsing and squeezing dry, but I'm very pleased with the results - I ran my blanket through the w/machine @ 60 degrees and it semi-felted, then after dyeing I re-lanolised it and it's now awaiting it's turn to be made into what I think'll be a great piece of clothing................Quite a bit of work, but a great piece of weatherproof wool at the end of it all, so I think well worth the effort. Hope this is of use to you,..............atb mac

 

[ozzy1977]

Bugger, I was hoping it would work, seing how the van dyke stain stains everything in sight, even the leaves off our walnut tree stain the path.

many thanks Macaroon

On to plan b then.

 

[Macaroon]

The Walnut stain is certainly one of my favourite colours, you can get so many lovely shades of brown; I use it a lot on wood and leather and it always looks great - and never the same thing twice! When I was a young 'un working with heavy horses, we used to have to paint the soak water from walnut leaves and twigs all 'round the doors and windows of the stables and harness room, one of the best fly repellants there is but never popular 'cause of the staining............I always loved the colour of my hands after using it..............atb mac

 

[Toddy]

Spandit did a brilliant write up of his teabag dyes.

Honestly, tea is tannin rich, and tannin is a substantive dye; that means it needs no mordant. Just make it really, really strong tea. Cheap supermarket own brand, or the bargains from B&M's or Home Bargains will do fine for it. It'll be a stain but it's a strong enough stain that it'll colour a cream blanket. It'll fade with time and washing, but you can always boil it up again in tea.
Walnut leaves might do very well mixed in with it, but the van dyke crystals would need not only a lot, but the ph balance changed.

Be interesting to give walnut leaves and tea a shot
Walnuts don't grow here
If anyone has a go, will you let me know how it turns out please ?

cheers,
M