Šentjanževka - tkani kvadratki St. John's wort - woven squares

   

Lani sem nasušila precej šentjanževke, za barvanje, za čaje in za v olje. V suhih cvetovih  je bilo kar nekaj žužkov, zato sem jo še zamrznila. Ker je do letošnje sveže še kar nekaj časa, sem to posušeno in zamrznjeno šentjanževo cvetje uporabila za barvanje volne.
Ni mi bilo do vseh odtenkov, ki jih običajno daje šentjanževka. Drugo barvo - rdečerjavo oziroma vijoličnorjavo  brez galuna - sem želela izpustiti. In sem barvala 50 g volnene preje, čimžane z galunom. Dobila sem pa ravno to rjavkasto. Ko sem barvala naslednjo štrenico, tudi z galunom, se je barva spet kazala kot rjavkasta. Dodala sem še nekaj galuna, kar v barvilno kopel, česar sicer ne delam, in dobila (sivo)zeleno. Tretja štrenica, spet z galunom, je dala pričakovano rumeno, pa tako nepričakovano živo, da je bila mokra videti kar malo fluorescentna.
Prav nepredvidljivi rezultati. Po dosedanjih izkušnjah in tudi po izkušnjah drugih barvilk bi namreč morala prva barva biti zelena, rjava pa samo na volni brez galuna.
Pa razumi, če moreš! 

Last summer I dried quite a lot of St. John's wort, for dyeing, teas and for oil extraction. There were several insects in dried flowers so I put them in the freezer. Since this year fresh flowers can not be expected very soon I decided to use these fried and frozen ones for dyeing wool.

I didn't want all the shades and colours this plant usually produces. I wanted to leave out the second colour, ie reddish-brown or violet-brown obtained without alum. So I set to dyeing 50 gram of alum mordanted wool yarn. What I got was exactly this brownish colour. When dyeing the next skein the colour shown was again the brownish. I added some alum in the dye pot, which I don't usually do, to obtain (greyish)green. The third skein, also alum mordanted, was the expected yellow, but so unexpectedly bright it was almost fluorescent when wet.

These results were quite unexpected. In my experience up till now, as well as in that of other natural dyers, the first colour should be green whereas the brownish would only develop on unmordanted wool.

Who could understand the surprises in natural dyeing!


Fotografije seveda slabo prikazujejo te bavne nianse. Slikala sem z osvetljavo z bliskavico in brez, pa nobena ni čisto realna.
Pa še nekaj dodatnih fotografij:

Of course the photos show the colour shades very poorly. I took pictures both with and without a flash, yet none shows the colours right.
Below are some additional pictures.