Some of you might remember my ‘solar dyeing’ post from the summer where I tried dyeing with natural materials – this resulted in middling results… I had 3 skeins of yarn and I used turmeric, matcha and avocado and rose petals to attempt to dye the skeins.
The turmeric and matcha just… didnt result in much color change. The turmeric, specifically, was the biggest let-down. It came out a beautiful and bright yellow but after about half an hour of drying, it completely lost it’s color – take a look at the skein on the far right of the left picture, that’s how it looked. The matcha didnt have any color change at all. The avocado and rose petal skein turned a tea color but the smell from that one was so pungent I actually threw it away because no amount of washing could get it out.
So I decided to try again, but with a little more science involved.
After a fair amount of research, I realized I needed to do a few extra steps to make this work: the skeins needed to be scoured, they needed tannin, they needed a mordant, and only then could you dye them. (yikes)
So first, I scoured them with some dawn dish detergent and baking soda. It’s recommended that you use synthrapol and heat it but that stuff scares me with the amount of WARNING: CANCER labels that are on it – and dawn basically does the same thing.
So, the tannin: this is basically the thing that makes the mordant ‘stick’ to the yarn.
I calculated that I had 293g of yarn, and I need 8% tannin (24g) and it needed to be heated to just under boiling and kept at that heat for about 2 hours. It smelled kinda like tea and left the skeins looking slightly darker than they were before.
I didnt get a pic because I did the mordanting right after.
I used Alum Acetate (8%) and, again, it needed to soak for about 2 hours – this time it just needed hot water, no boiling.
At this point, it’s already 8pm (I started all this after work) so I decided to leave the skeins to dry in the laundry room and finish the next day – it’s a good thing I put then so far away because apparently, they STINK at this point.
The mordanting, by the way is to help the dye ‘stick’ to the yarn. And it needed to be fixed to the yarn by using phosphates. I didnt have the recommended kind, but after some more research, I found out that you can use wheat bran as a substitute – so I dissolved it into some water and soaked it for a bit.
Now onto the actual dyeing. I decided on madder root for my dye – which should provide a lovely dark, deep red. It needed hard water, so I chucked an antacid into the water to help it get to the right levels, and finally dyed my yarn.
It took about 4 hours.
I did 2 skeins first so I could get a 50%-ish dye-to-yarn ratio for a darker red, and the last 2 skeins got put in after and soaked up the rest.
In the picture, you can see the 2 on the left are the first batch. They turned out more or less how I imagined – I do wish they were a little darker. I only got 100g of madder because I thought that would be enough but apparently, you need quite a bit of the stuff to make it really dark. Oh well.
The last 2 skeins turned a sort of coral color. I dont mind it at all – those were my ‘afterthought’ skeins.
Some glitches:
1. the wheat bran was a BAD idea – this stuff was IMPOSSIBLE to wash out and after 6 (SIX) rinses it was still coming out of the skeins. It took drying, shaking, and re-skeining to get the flakes of bran out. and I think there’s still a bunch in there.
2. As I mentioned, I didnt have enough madder to really get the color I wanted – I wish I had done ALL the calculations before getting my materials (my fault tho)
3. I definitely didnt expect the whole process to take SO DAMN LONG. 1 hour to scour, 2 for tannin, 2 for mordanting, 4 for dyeing and about 1-2 for rinsing/washing. It’s…. a time commitment, I’ll tell ya.
In the end, I got somewhat of the right color I was hoping for. I’ll be using it to finish off my crochet waistcoat. And it was a huge learning opportunity, so that was cool.
But was it worth it? Absolutely not. Maybe if I was mordanting 10-20 skeins at a time to use later, it would be worth the time commitment – but holy hell is it a lot of work.
Will I do this again? Probably not. I mean, I can use acid dye, get a much bigger array of vibrant colors and it will take a fraction of the time. The natural dyes do give really lovely earthy colors – which is why I did this in the first place, but it’s just not worth it for me.
Thanks for sticking around long enough to read all this! I’ll be using this yarn soon so you can see it in action.
Thanks so much for checking my FAQ first! I need to update that thing…
So, I grew up Christian, my dad was Catholic for a long time and as a child I remember going to Baptist churches, but my mom hated them so we later moved to a much more modern and easy going church afterwards. I was actually talking about this recently with someone close to me, who was born and raised in an extreme Christian home, to the point where he hadn’t been vaccinated for anything, and his birth certificate wasn’t valid when we were trying to get him a passport due to the home birth… But think of it this way: Catholicism especially – uses a lot of aspects of witchcraft within the religion itself already. The communion, the worship, the offerings, the candle lighting, the prayers, and anointing oils, etc. I even remember one of the Catholic aunts telling me, “Little Pinay, if you ever are scared of anything, light a red candle dedicated to the arch angle Micheal. Aint nothin’ messing with Micheal.”
Working with the saints and Jesus and God – it’s sprit work. Baptism is basically giving your soul to these spirits(and witches are condemned for selling their soul to the devil. pfft.) Lighting candles and wishing protection, or praying to any of the above – spell work. It’s intention, isn’t it?
Don’t feel bad practicing witchcraft. Christians and Catholics have been practicing it this whole time, and simply calling it a different thing.
Hey, unpopular opinion, apparently. But people don’t just “have pain for no reason” doctors say this all the time (especially to women and chronically ill people) and the truth is, Thats literally not possible. Even if your pains are psychosomatic (a word I hesitate to even use because of the way its used so often) there is a reason you are having those pains whether its mental illness, abuse, etc. If your doctor consistently tells you that “well some people just have pain for no reason” get a new doctor. That’s a doctor who is not going to give a shit what your actual symptoms or experiences are.
I just wanna add to clarify the psychosomatic thing.
That word DOES NOT MEAN you’re making it up. It doesn’t mean you’re imagining the symptom. What it means is that the symptom ISN’T DIRECTLY CAUSED BY ANY OF THE THINGS THAT WOULD NORMALLY CAUSE IT.
I fought to get a PCOS diagnosis for 2 and a half years. For the ENTIRE time I was fighting, I was dealing with 3 cysts that were not going away by themselves and eventually required surgery to remove. At one point close to the end of the battle, I suddenly went blind. I was visiting my parents and was standing on the veranda looking out over the tree we had planted in memory of my dog and suddenly I got one of the shooting pains that I was quite frankly used to at that point and my vision started to go dark. It was like the sun was setting while being completely hidden behind storm clouds but it was 2pm in the middle of Summer on a clear day. Within about 30 seconds I couldn’t see ANYTHING. I was 27 years old and I was screaming for my mother.
My mum raced me to her doctor (he was a 15 minute drive away as opposed to 45 minutes to the nearest hospital) and he quickly worked out that there was nothing wrong with my eyes and what had happened was totally unrelated to them. Then he said it was psychosomatic and I freaked out, yelling that I was NOT making this up and I definitely wasn’t imagining it. Very quickly he calmed me down and said he believed me and I had misunderstood. He explained that whatever was going on with my abdominal pains (he suggested PCOS which I hadn’t even heard of at that point) had been ignored for so long that my body was starting to do things other than the normal pain response to try to draw my attention to the problem. My sight going was my body basically jumping around in front of me going “HEY ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME HELLLOOOOOOO??????”
He gave me some prescription strength painkillers and my sight started to come back as soon as they started to kick in. About 45 minutes after it started I could see well enough to walk around without help and within a day and a half I was back to normal. On top of that I finally had a scan booked to figure out what the hell was causing all the pain.
Psychosomatic symptoms are NOT imagined or fabricated or happening for “no reason”. Experiencing them DOES NOT make you a liar. It makes you someone who has been battling with something serious for so long that your own body has started to get impatient with you.
I completely agree. Thank you for sharing this.
Psychosomatic symptoms are literally your body flipping random alarm switches just to get any alarm blaring because you’ve been ignoring the regular ones
I’ve been waiting on this deck since….I don’t know when the Kickstarter launched, 2017? Anyways it’s FINALLY HERE so here are my first impressions.
The deck comes in a beautiful wooden box with laser etchings of the four suits on the sides. The lid slides off. It’s really cool. It comes with a guidebook written by Rachel Pollack and of course there are the cards themselves. The cards are not as wide as a standard tarot deck (2.25"x5.25" according to the Kickstarter) but they have a matte finish and matte gilding that is a bit darker than the Starchild/Moonchild, gives it a wooden look. The cards have a white border and a “frame” around the image in different colours. The backs have a rectangular pattern made up of all the frames (reminds me of a blanket).
The only major that has been renamed is the Hanged One. The suits are Arrows (Swords), Feathers (Wands), Horns (Cups) and Roots (Pentacles), Arrows/Swords are associated with air and Feathers/Wands with Fire. They have grey, red, blue, and orange borders respectively. The court cards are Daughter, Son, Mother, and Father. The majors have a number and a title, the minors have a number and a keyword. The court cards just have a title (Son of Roots, Mother of Horns etc.)
The guidebook includes a single six card custom spread, the “Wilderness” spread.
The system is predominately RWS based, I would say, but the minors and courts are specifically influenced by the Haindl Tarot. I skimmed through the guidebook and it does appear to indicate when elements are drawn from other systems, but if you’re familiar with the RWS you shouldn’t have any problems.
The art was created first as linocuts (on linoleum blocks) and then via a technique called relief printmaking, which (to quote the artist, Emi Brady) is a “glorified rubber stamp”. She takes you through the process on the Kickstarter page. The end result is that the images have that nice etched look, that’s how I’m going to describe it from now on, that etched look. There’s something about the line work that makes it pleasing to the eye. The colour palette is very earthy, lots of browns and blacks. Some cards (like the Fool) have white backgrounds. I feel like this really highlights the animal in the card but it also looks a bit out of place. I kind of want to colour in the backgrounds but I also paid a lot for this deck and I don’t want to ruin it with my inferior colouring skills.
The artwork is of North American animals, so you won’t find any elephants and whatnot. You will find a lot of birds. The only human made objects in this deck are in the arrows and horns suits (the horns are drinking horns). The deck also doesn’t shy away from the less pretty aspects of the natural world. I know some people really don’t like seeing dead or injured animals in their decks. The eagle on the nine of arrows’ (”Anguish”) expression over her smashed eggs (from DDT, no less) is heartbreaking! My favourite image is the Sun. I love goldfinches (and sunflowers) and they are perfect for this card.
I think my biggest gripe with this deck is that the minors don’t have the name of their suit, just a number. The cards do have the suit symbols but it makes it more difficult to identify the cards at a glance. It’s unfortunate, because it’s a lovely deck and I can see this simple thing being a major turn off for a lot of people. Another issue is that sometimes it’s a bit difficult to see the keyword at the bottom of the card. It just blends in with the rest of the image. If you’re a more intuitive reader this probably won’t bother you as much but it bothers me personally when I see there’s text and I can’t read it.
Overall, I like this deck, but I’m going to need a bit more time with it. It feels like a meaty deck (no pun intended) with a strong sense of place.
i am SO SICK of unhappy endings. idk about anyone else but the #1 reason i like fiction is because everything can always work out no matter how bad it is. “what if the good guys lost” shut up. you are so fucking boring. give me happy endings or give me nothing
WEATHER REPORT – ACE OF PENTACLES.
Look at this rich and juicy Ace of Pentacles! It’s the seed of future goodness, and today, we’re asked to turn our soil and plant it.
What’s on your mind today? Is it healing a wound, or conducting a work of magic, or saving up for a trip, or expanding your reach, or simply being present for every moment of your day?
Whatever your focus, the Ace of Pentacles says the best results come when we make our desires a practice. Now’s the time for taking tangible steps in the direction you want to go. It’s a great moment to just do one thing that contributes to a life well lived, as you see it. And once you’ve done that one thing, you do it again, or do the next thing, one foot in front of the other, one full watering can and some pruning and a day of good sunshine, and your Ace of Pentacles has grown into a rich and fruitful garden, ready to be harvested. Let’s take those first steps today, in the service of future gardens in bloom!
Today’s Weather is from the #PaganOtherworldsTarot. In stock now at twosidestarot.com 💛 https://www.instagram.com/p/BqnlZgfnY9D/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=nmhdwvwvs7xi
Spitfire Alice A Gra 
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