With the advent of medical marijuana and CBD legalization sweeping the world, Iโve been seeing more opportunities to work with one of the oldest natural dyes: hemp. Hemp has long been used as a fabric and material base, but did you know that itโs also possible to dye soft yellows with the stems, stalks and leaves of the hemp plant?
When I moved into my home last year, I was surprised to find out that my next door neighbor is a CBD farmer, and he gathered a huge bag of leftover stems and stalks from their annual harvest for me to try my hand at dyeing with. While these dried, leftover elements have less color than the leaves would, I thought it would be worth it to give them a shot in the dyepot using many of the same methods Iโd use for other wood-based dyes, like Brazilwood, Osage, or Cutch.
For this dye experiment, youโll want the following materials on hand. Remember, anything you use for natural dyeing must not be used again for food or food prep at any time, and youโll want to store it separately to avoid any cross-contamination.
*These items have been pre-calculated in the amount you need for this project, dyeing 200 g of wool, however, youโll find what you need to do your own calculations using the mordanting guide below.
Step 1: Prep your fiber. Knomad pre-scours and washes their yarns before shipping them to us, so there should be no need to heavily clean the fibersโsimply remove the tags, leaving all the ties, and open the hank into a big loop. Add reinforcement ties if you feel theyโre necessary, and soak the fiber in warm water for an hour to get it fully saturated (typically 1 hour).
Step 2: Measure the alum. Wearing a respirator or face mask, measure out 12% of your weight of fiber (WOF) in alum sulfate. Hereโs the math for our experiment:
200 x 0.12 = 24 g of aluminum sulfate
Hot tip: weigh out how much alum is in a tablespoon (dedicated tablespoon) and then calculate moving forward about how many tablespoons youโll need to simplify future measuring.
Step 3: Add hot water to your alum in a small mixing container. I like to use empty, recycle-ready plastic containers. Stir the alum and water mixture until the alum is fully dissolved and the water looks cloudy or clear, but has no visible grains in the bottom of the container. Measure out 1 tbsp of Cream of Tartar and dissolve it into the water while itโs still warm.
Step 4: Transfer your mordanting solution to a larger stock pot, and fill with enough water to cover your skeins of yarn (donโt add them until the pot has all the water in it). Stir and then add your yarn, moving it around to let it fully absorb the mordanting solution. Set on low heat and simmer (do not boil) for 1 hour. Allow to cool overnight with the yarn in the solution.
If you have only one pot, youโll need to wait until tomorrow to do this step. If you are using more than one pot, you can prepare the dye bath the same day that you mordant as follows.
Step 5: Create your dye bath.
This hemp dye bath needs to steep for 1 hour, then have approximately 12-24 hours to fully develop. You may decide to make your dye bath ahead of everything else and see how rich you can get the color to be before you add yarn. For this experiment, I broke down the twigs and stems into more manageable pieces, then boiled in water for 1 hour before taking it off the heat and allowing it to develop overnight. Even with this extended amount of time, my bath was a very clear yellowโfor a stronger tone, I might let the twigs soak in a bucket for a few weeks rather than hours.
Leave your dye bath overnight to fully develop.
Step 6: On the day you are ready to dye, strain your dye bath into a cookpot, removing any sticks, stems or vegetable matter.
Step 7: Prepare the yarn. Drain the water from your yarn soak, and push a little of the extra retained water out with your fingers. Not too muchโliquid being held by the fiber will help draw the dye into the yarn, so we donโt want to take it all out and risk too much splotchiness in the final fiber. Add your yarns genty to the dye bath, making sure that yarn has enough room to move around but is mostly submerged in the pot. If you need more water, itโs okay to add some here.
Step 8: Place your pot on the heat source of your choice and increase the temperature gradually to a heat just under simmering. If you have a thermometer, youโre going to first lift the temperature to 90 F (32 C), stir, and then lift the temperature again to 180 F (82 C). I donโt have a thermometer, so I just eyeball it, and thatโs okay too. You want the water hot enough for steam to be rising off it, but not so hot that itโs bubbling, boiling, or moving your yarn around for you. Keep the dye bath at this temperature for an hour, stirring occasionally to move the fibers around and keep them from collecting dye only on one side. After an hour, turn the heat off and let it cool.
Step 9: Lift a bit of your yarn from the pot and evaluate the colorโwith onion skins it can develop quickly and strengthen slightly as it cools. If you like the color as-is, remove the yarn from the pot and move to the next step. If you would like to see the color deepen or strengthen a bit, leave it in the pot overnight, stirring one more time before you go to bed.
Step 10: Remove your yarns from the dye bath and smoosh out some of the extra dyeโset the wool aside. Fill a sink, basin or bucket with room temperature water and add your yarn, moving it around with your hands to allow dye release. When the water is dark, drain it and do this step again. Rinse until the water is mostly clear to ensure that no dye particles will transfer to hands or clothing while working with the finished yarns. If you want, you can add a little bit of wool wash to one of these rinse baths to improve the softness and scent of your finished yarn.
Step 11: Hang your hanks of yarn to dry out of the direct sun (I like to use a portable hanging rack in the bathtub). They will drip a little bit, so if you need to dry them indoors, I suggest putting them in a bathtub or in a room with a drain (like a basement). Depending on your humidity and weather, it can take 1-2 days for yarn to fully dry, but maneuvering it so that the same part of the hank is not always hanging down can help move this process along a bit.
I hope some of you might also live somewhere that youโll be able to try this more unusual dye material, and we can re-capture the interesting color range Iโm sure this plant offers us. Right now thereโs not a lot of information available online about dyeing with hemp, so please let us know if youโre able to try this experiment and get different colors!
Tags: Hand dyers, latte
I’m going to give it a go this week! Legal in Michigan.
Let us know how it goes!!!