Here in Northern California (and the Southwestern United States in general) we're very attuned to snowpack in the mountains, water storage levels, and water usage. We're frequently heading into a drought, in a drought, or just coming out of one. Our climate here in the San Francisco Bay Area is "summer dry", meaning that we get most of our rain in the winter months. Many of us try to conserve water using various strategies both inside and outside the house.
Winter rain is cause for celebration!
This year we received a lot of rain in November and December, thanks to several atmospheric rivers that traveled through our area. And then it stopped, except for a few brief evening showers in January and February. The clay soil hangs on to water at the molecular level for the summer months ahead, but we always hope for more. Finally, it rained last night!
In this video I’m sharing some updates to my studio, with the spotlight on new products and equipment. In another video we’ll showcase fabrics. It’s always fun to try different ideas and methods. I may not use everything this year, but I like to be “tooled up” and ready.
Digital Scale
One new acquisition is a digital kitchen scale, used to weigh fabric and material for dye projects. This replaces my trusty kitchen scale that is limited to one pound. This affordable Beurer scale weighs up to 33 pounds (15 kilograms), and informs you if an item is “over limit”. You can configure different units, including pounds and ounces, ounces, grams, and kilograms. And you can retain a measurement, which is ideal when trying to weigh materials and record the results at the same time.
Digital kitchen scale for weighing fabric and dye material
Convection Cooktop
Another acquisition is an electric convection burner. I resisted going this route because convection cooktops require flat-bottomed, magnetic pans, which are more expensive and harder to find at thrift stores. But I was eager to move away from propane canisters, which require special disposal. This affordable Ovente Induction Cooktop offers a range of preset temperature levels, from 140 to 465 degrees Fahrenheit. Five timer levels are preset from 1 minute to 3 hours. Safety features shut down the burner when not in use. My camp stove worked well, but it was difficult to regulate temperature (it was either on or off). Luckily one of my thrifted stainless-steel pans works with the new cooktop.
Convection burner
Low-suds Detergent
I ran out of Synthrapol scouring soap at the end of last season, so this year I’m trying a low suds Professional Textile Detergent distributed by Dharma Trading Company. Here in the West, we must conserve water, so I’m hoping a low-suds detergent will reduce the quantity of water needed for rinsing.
Jars, Cans and Containers
I’m always on the lookout for good jars, cans, and containers. Last year I purchased a 3-liter canning jar at a thrift store, which works great for solar dyeing. Jars are also handy for storing used dye, collecting plant material, and mixing additives. Cans are also useful for mixing and extracting dye. Meat and vegetable trays can be used to collect and dry plant material. They are often high quality and in a variety of sizes.
Cans, jars, and containers are great for storing, drying and preparing dye material
Ferrous Sulfate
Last year I added ferrous sulfate powder to a red camelia dye bath. Iron darkens or “saddens” the dye bath, producing darker colors. This year I’d like to experiment more with using iron in the dye bath as a modifier to produce additional colors. You can make your own iron mordant solution by soaking iron in vinegar water and use it as an alternative to ferrous sulfate.
Make your own iron solution
Exhaust Dyeing
This year I also plan to experiment with exhaust dyeing, which means reusing dyes. Over the last several years I’ve collected quite a few left-over dyes. They have been used once, which is the first exhaust. Each use of a dye is an exhaust. With each exhaust, the color becomes lighter and lighter. Modifiers, such as washing soda and iron, change the pH of the dye bath and further modify the dye color. I’m curious to see the range of colors that can be produced from a single dye bath.
Each reuse of a dye is an exhaust
Solar and Eco-Dyeing
This year we’ll try more solar dyeing, which uses the sun or time to dye. And we may try "eco-dyeing", which is the direct transfer of color from plants. I’ve seen some interesting projects online.
Well, that’s it for now. As you can see, I have lots of plans, but may run out of time. Whatever I decide to do, I’m tooled up and ready to dye!
Every homesteader needs a resource like Rodale's Book of Practical Formulas (Rodale Press, Inc., New York, 1991). It is filled with recipes and formulas for all your do-it-yourself, cleaning, remodeling, repairing, camping, celebrating, and problem-solving projects. My sister gave this book to me one Christmas, and I refer to it anytime I want a non-toxic, sustainable, low cost solution to a project. The section on cleaning solutions for tile and grout is especially well used. The book is written by a team of experts in their fields, and provides a distilled version of their expertise.
The book is divided into ten chapters that cover most areas of life: Car Care, Cooking, Gardening, Beauty, Health, Home Repair and Remodeling, Housekeeping, Crafts, Pet Care, and Outdoor Life. Recipes and formulas range from driveway cleaner, a one-minute breakfast, cutworm bait, apple-cider vinegar toner, and chapped lips salve; to colored concrete, lemon oil furniture polish, flower drying mixes, deluxe dog biscuits, and hiker's granola. The backmatter provides a list of supply sources from all over the world (herbs and spices, beeswax, diatomaceous earth, orange oil, plaster molds, dyes and mordants, to name a few).
Two of my favorite chapters are Gardening and Crafts. The Gardening chapter provides recipes for seed starting and soil mixes, natural fertilizers, compost and pest repellents. Other formulas encourage root growth and sterilize containers. The Crafts chapter includes a section on "Dye Crafts", with information about plants used for dyeing, and how to dye wool (should be useful when I expand from dyeing cellulose-based fibers to protein-based fibers). I heartily recommend this book for any task or project you need to tackle. And, when you're ready for a break, head over to the Cooking chapter for the sandwich bar and apple crisp!
