I like the colour of blackberries but have always avoided using them because I have heard they are rather fugitive. Looking at Deans book however it seems they are less fugitive than elderberries. I found this rather surprising. I gather blackberries stain rather than dye. I am not sure of the technical difference between the two, I gather it is something to do with molecule size which gives different characteristics but frankly as long as there is a colour change I cannot be bothered to get my head around it. I used an alum mordant and dyed wool, silk and lace. I used equal ratios of dyestuff to fibre. I really wanted a deep colour but couldn’t achieve anything deeper. I gather a small amount of tin can deepen the colour. It certainly produced a richer and slightly bluer purple. The wool was simmered in the dye pot for a hour and then left to cool overnight, roughly 14 hrs.
For the silk I only bought the pot to a simmer for a few minutes and then let it cool as before. I had some lace and un spun Shetland added to the pot. I tend to find silk difficult. Despite regular stirring it tends to cling to itself and that can produce a slightly patchy result. Short of stirring regularly, which is hard if you are leaving it overnight I couldn’t come up with a solution. Nevertheless it dried to a rather charming colour which is perfectly useable. Here it is next to the Golden rod I used about a week earlier. This was the second extraction.
Now we were in the middle of a 40C heatwave here and I wasn’t at all sure if the remaining dyestuff would store. It was already starting to turn mouldy. I have read you could freeze it but I really don’t have the space. Now according to Dean if you change the pH towards alkaline it shifts mauves towards blue green. I had a small amount of fleece left so I added bicarbonate. No change whatever, I added more. There was wonderful fizzing going on but no colour change whatever. In the end, and rather desperate for any colour whatsoever, I added some copper water. Unfortunately this turned the dye pot a dreadful brown which reminded me of the lavatory 😬It then dried to a very unglamorous khaki.Such is life.
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