12.11.06

Earthues! (shameless marketing monday) and the return of the Prodigal Pup!

Posted in dogs, shameless marketing monday at 12:44 am by wendy

Earthues is a line of natural dye supplies and natural dye extracts of excellent quality, and I’m very excited to have some in stock to sell. Earthues is based in Seattle and was founded by Michelle Wipplinger, a master dyer who has traveled the world learning and teaching in the natural dye field.

I’m really having fun with the first part of the shop’s order, which includes COLORS kits.

The COLORS kit is made up of 11 Earthues natural dye extracts, 3 indigo agents, 2 fixatives (mordants) and scour, enough fun stuff for dyeing up about 60 pounds of fibers. I have three in the shop available for purchase at $150 with free shipping.

I’ve been playing with one of my own and mordanted protein fibers–superwash sock yarn, wool/silk yarn, mohair/silk yarn, cultivated silk yarn, finn wool fiber and superwash wool fiber and dyed with cochineal and logwood purple extract, a lovely purple violet variegation.

I’ve done silk, wool, wilk/wool blend, linen and superwash yarns in indigo dips and plan to overdye for some variegated green and blues, my favorites. Cochineal, with a very strong indigo dip:

$150 might seem like a hell of a lot of money to spend on dyeing, but pound for pound it’s about as good a deal as acid dyes/fiber reactive dyes.A half ounce of acid dyes/fiber reactive dye dyes two pounds to a medium depth of shade, and a half ounce goes for about $4.50-$8.00 (depends on whether you’re going for Dharma’s store brand or name brand Lanaset/Sabraset/Procion MX) so that’s $135-240 to dye the same amount with acid dyes, not including the peripherals like gloves, masks, ph strips, soda ash & an acid like vinegar or citric acid. And shipping. The peripherals and instructions are included in the kit, so I think it’s actually a pretty good way to break into natural dyeing, and not as expensive as one might think. Nor as difficult. The extracts are excellent, very concentrated and easy to use.  The instructions are fairly simple, whether you’re an experienced dyer or not. I will put up tutorials soon to demonstrate the processes, I promise and results.

Anyway, here’s the fun stuff the kit contains (all ingredients are extracts, in powdered or liquid form):

1. cochineal extract (dactylopus coccus) ½ounce
2. quebracho red (aspidosperma quebracho, Quebrachea lorentzwii) 2 ounces
3. logwood grey (haematoxylon campechianum) 2 ounces
4. fustic (chlorophora tinctoria) 2 ounces
5. chestnut (costanea sativa) 1 ounce
6. indigo (indigofera tinctoria) 2 ounces
7. madder extract (rubia cordifolia/tinctorium) blend 1 ounces
8. logwood purple (haematoxylon campechianum) 2 ounces
9. osage orange (maclura pomifera) 2 ounces
10. pomegranate (punica granatum) 2 ounces
11. cutch (acacia catechu) 2 ounces
12. iron (ferous sulfate) 2 ounes
13. soda ash (sodium carbonate) 2 ounces
14. scour, washing agent for cellulose 2 ounces
15. aluminum sulfate (mordant for protein fibers) 16 ounces
16. aluminum acetate (mordant for cellulose fibers) 8 ounces
17. reducing agent for indigo (thiourea dioxide) 2 ounces
18. Instruction book
19. mask and gloves
20. Ph strips

I think that’s about it, all packed in a box that seems too small to fit it all.

Quite clever packaging, really.Pomonabunny has returned! (and we are trying to remember to call her Angelina, her “new” name)

Man alive, I almost forgot how beautiful she is. But now she’s all snuggled up in our bed and it’s like she never left.I’ll try not to be such a damp, pathetic snivelly mess when her mommy comes back for her, this time.
The boys have been settled back into the GAC kennel. I called, worried, and was told that they were doing just fine, and Snuggle was “really hyper.” Yep, that’s our boy.

Permalink