Poke Berries

In the last month, early August to the present, the Poke Berry bushes have been blooming. They grow all around this starving artist's apartment. Tiny white blossoms, a little larger that that filler flower Baby's Breath, have quietly erupted into these ripened red berries, as red and deep as blood. The wine-red hue is more pleasant than the scent. Squished poke berries stink like generic lumps or play dough, floating in a cursed sludge of vinegar. It stinks . But I'm enduring the stench to color some yarns with it...

Poke berries are abundant around my house and they only need vinegar as a mordant. Vinegar is also the only chemical used in the dye vat. No tin, chrome, or titanium used to hold the color. I get pretty colors and keep my brain cells. As this is my second attempt at poke berry dye, I have an unusual recipe: a quart of pre-boiled poke berry juice, and now a half a pound of poke berries that sat in my freezer for a week. I based the recipe on an old book, Complete Illustrated Book of Dyes from Natural Sources, by Krochmal and Krochmal. Sounds a little like a detective duo, no? I found the book in the library of the high school I sub at. Incidentally, the last time the book was checked out was on my birthday: same day, month, year.

Recipe 1: I used a pound of berries, chopped in the food processor, and boiled it with vinegar. No pre-mordant. The color came out all right, but not as deep as I'd hope (a faded magenta hue). I tried cotton and wool yarns; the cotton was barely a pink hue. I saved the dye bath (what was left after being boiled down).

Recipe number two: I pre-mordanted a skein and a half of Fisherman's wool (Lyon yarn from AC Moore), wrapped in six different hanks, and put them in a pot with a half gallon of white vinegar, and one and a half gallons of water. I brought this to a boil, and boiled it for an hour, leaving all six submerged hanks in the water until they had cooled completely. Three hours later I had wrung them out and let them dry a couple. Today I put them into a pot with the strained pre-boiled quart of dye, a half a pound of pokeberries as is, a half gallon of vinegar, and a little water to cover the yarn hanks. I also hanged three hanks on the pot, dipping then here and there, for two tone.

Recipe aside, smells aside, images coming soon.