INTRODUCTION
This data is for groups 3 and 4, whose members include Clark Glymph, Bruce Jones, Lily Petersen, Chance Tunnissen, Madeleine Goldberger, Losh Li, Zoe Roettger, and Caleb Valentino. This Lab Group Data report is written jointly by Chance Tunnissen and Caleb Valentino.
This week’s lab involved travelling out to Get Bentz Farm, where we dyed wool and hung out with sheep. Our group’s dye of choice was madder root, which gives a reddish color. We used wool from varying stages of processing including unprocessed locks; roving; hand-spun wool by Bruce, Clark, and Lily; and white and gray mill-spun wool.
PRE-DYEING
In-class on Wednesday, before the lab, we weighed and mordanted the locks, roving, hand-spun, and some of the mill-spun wool. Pre-mordanting weights are given in Fig. 3. We used 39 g (~12% of total wool weight) of aluminum sulfate (Al2(SO4)3) as our mordant.
DYEING
According to Maddie, the dyeing expert who guided us through this lab, madder root dyeing is somewhat temperamental, in that, for best results, the dye’s temperature had to be kept between ~140 and ~175 degrees F. Maintaining this temperature window required recording the dye’s temperature every minute, and putting the pot on/off the fire and the lid on/off the pot. See Fig. 1 for a graph of the dye’s temperature over time. We dyed the wool for 75 minutes, after which it was taken out of the pot and hung to dry. It took 5 minutes to remove all the wool from the pot.
The image on the left shows our pot near the low end of our ideal temperature range at 140°
The right shows it near the high end at 164°
POST-DYEING
In-class on Friday, after the lab, we took a look at our dyed wool. There was a clear distinction between mordanted and non-mordanted wool, with the mordanted wool having a much more vibrant reddish color. The roving had the most vibrant color and the mill-spun the least. It was difficult to tell that the gray non-mordanted mill-spun wool had been dyed at all. We also weighed the locks, roving, and white mordanted mill-spun wool again (see Fig. 2). It should be noted that the wool was not fully dry for this second weighing. Additionally, the roving seemed to have become felted. White mordanted roving dyed the best, and gray non-mordanted mill-spun dyed the worst.
The image on the left shows dark-colored mordanted wool. The right shows the unspun roving. Both are taken immediately after they were removed from the dye pot.
Figures and Tables
Figure 1: Temperature Over Time Graph
Lid on (purple diamonds): 11:00, 30:30, 67:00
Off fire (blue circles): 8:40, 30:30, 65:40
On fire (red circles): 23:00, 54:00
Figure 2: Temperature Over Time Table
Figure 3: Weights
Photos:
Lily-spun yarn immediately after dyeing and the day after:
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