Pokeberry Dye Process

One of my projects from last winter were my 18th Century Women's Mitts, according to the pattern by Mara Riley. (The pattern is excellent by the way.)

I have been asked about what my procedure was, so here it is. As best as I can remember, because while I keep meaning to take notes about my dye experiments, I keep forgetting. Thus, my measurements are very, very approximate. (More of an art than a science?) One of these years I'll have the time to sit down for some proper experimentation, and I'll record my recipes. (I'll try and make these directions fairly idiot-proof, so don't mind me if I state the obvious, please...heh.)

NOTE: I'll try and get better pictures tomorrow once the sun comes up.

Stage 1:
Pick the berries by simply cutting the racemes (fruit stalks) and dropping them into your container. For this, I used a 2-quart applesauce jar (it was what I had available) filled it, mashed the berries down, packed in more racemes on top of the already mashed berries, and mashed those down. (The amount of berries becomes important later.) If I remember rightly, the jar was something like 1/2-2/3rds full once I'd mashed up the berries again. Obviously, you want to try and break open all the berries.

Stage 2:
Fill the jar to approx 2/3rds full with white vinegar. The ratio of vinegar to berries is actually pretty important. I've dyed with pokeberries a total of three times (though the first time was more than 10 years ago so I don't really remember what my Mom and I did.) Most recently, I once added a lot of vinegar to comparatively few berries (I had a gallon jar, so put in more vinegar) and the second time used a smaller ratio of vinegar to berries. You see the first case on the left (red skein), second case on the right. (The lighting in both my old dorm room and my old apartment was terrible, but the colors are moderately accurate here. Enough to sort of illustrate the point, anyway. The first is more of a brick red, the second more bluish.)

My other hypothesis about why this may have happened: the dyebath itself may be light sensitive enough to affect the final color. (The ages-ago project turned out the bluish color the most recent did.) The first dyebath was kept in a windowless basement, almost entirely in the dark, and the third was essentially kept in the dark as well, since for all intents and purposes I lived in a cave last year - my apartment was almost completely devoid of any natural light. The second bath, on the other hand, was kept in a bright lab with large windows...well, something else to test.


Stage 3:
I essentially forgot about the jar of dyestuff for about three months, or didn't have the time to use it. Finally, I strained it into my dyepot, added enough water to be able to float my yarn, and heated it for somewhere about 30 minutes. This is one part where you have to be careful - whatever you do, don't let the dye boil! This will also brown the dye. I neurotically watch a candy thermometer I've put in the pot, and make sure the temperature doesn't go above 80C.

Stage 4:
Added the wool - prewetted, one skein of fingering weight Bare Peruvian Highland Wool from Knitpicks, pre-mordanted with alum. (It was all I had, and all I needed for my mitts, so I can't tell you anything about the strength of the dyebath.) This is what the wool looked like when I couldn't help fiddling with it:
I let the yarn simmer for about an hour. Then pulled it out, rinsed it, let it dry, and knitted it up. I have worn the mitts out a couple of times to events, so I intend to pull them out and see how much they may have faded.

And that's it!