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I tried solar dyeing with lichen

Wolf Does The Thing

6,438 views

@wolfdoesthething

The call of dyeing wool has finally gotten to me in the form of solar dyeing with natural dyes. Let's find out if shoving some (only vaguely identified) lichen into a jar with (unscoured and unmordanted) wool and water will result in anything other than bad smells! I'm trying three different types of lichen: usnea, ragbag, and oakmoss. Assuming I'm not wildly incorrect given my nonexistent lichen ID abilities. All foraged off the ground around my home after a very cold and windy start of the summer!

Mold dyeing https://tondro.com/blog/2005/07/08/mo...
Lichen dye video by ‪@StitchDeLaSuisse‬ Lichen Dyes on Merino & Silk: Usnea, Bryor... which was a huge inspiration for my own experiments here

Subscriber count at the time of posting: 697

00:00 Intro
03:09 Preparing jars
08:21 Day 1
09:28 Day 2
10:04 2 weeks
12:18 1 month
13:04 2 months
14:55 Washing
19:28 Dealing with smells
20:56 Taking notes
25:07 Reveal
25:55 Outro

20 Comments

@MijnWolden 1 month ago

I'm getting this weird feeling of being slightly called out, together with my discord community, in that intro 👀🤭

@kristinaschmitt8298 1 month ago

I actually hollered and pumped my fist when you showed the dyed and undyed fibers together. All three look great!

@MadHatta555 1 month ago

Using a little bit of mesh/tule to encase the fibers (can be a simple as a square that's tied up with twine) can help a lot in the long run and save you needing to get all the bits out! You can also use any mesh sack from onions or other produce if you want to recycle. Just don't pack the fiber too tightly or you end up with a tie dye effect.

@angelanice 1 month ago

My friend shared this video with me and I subscribed the moment you apologized to us for bumping the camera, you're definitely my people 😊

@mirandahinton3250 1 month ago

Love it! Didnt know lichen woud do orange!

@shonascraftjourney 1 month ago

Haha your cat is totally stealing the limelight when your trying to explain and show progress 😂

@Roceal31 1 month ago

I don’t have access to a lot of lichens, but I do have lots of eucalyptus leaves around. I have in the past played around with dyeing wool with eucalypt leaves, but I really should try out solar dyeing this summer. Thanks for the inspo!

@lizlikespink1052 1 month ago

I live in the same kind of ecosystem as you, so I'm super excited to know how my local lichens dye! Great video!!!

@MarinaMandarinaWoolyWorld 1 month ago

It was very interesting to watch, especially as you were doing it in absolutely simple way, now big words, no unheard ingredients, no extra fuss, my kind of experiment ♡
Few years ago Jana from Finnish Knitting Stories was doing a natural dying experiments on her podcast and she said that there is a limit for how long you should keep them in the jar. If too long, they may reverse the dying process and go back to natural wool colour. She was doing it with fruits and flowers.
It is cool to see those 3 yellow fluffs next to the un-dyed one, the un-dyed one looks extremely white next to them.

@missmermaidens 1 month ago

Totally in awe of this, it's so cool you were able to achieve these colors! And you were so brave and dedicated, waiting months AND going in with no gloves 🤣 You also were cracking me up, my favorite comments were “Dividing by vibes”, “What if I just don’t?”, and “Don’t eat lichen okay” 🤣 Also, I'm obsessed with your cats, but you know this :)

@chloey3412 1 month ago

What a fun experiment!! You've definitely inspired me to want to try sollar dying!

@dawnmoriarty9347 1 month ago

Really interesting. I'm at the beginning of beginning sucked down the dying rabbit hole despite already having a mountain of other crafting projects to tackle....

@allysseriordan1073 1 month ago

I love this :) Dyeing videos I see are often quite work intensive (or at least you need to remember about a pot on a stove >.<) and this looked super easy and chill to do. It's now really tempting me. I'm adding it to the list of fibre things to try :)

@libelle8582 1 month ago

I recently came by your channel and absolutely love it!!! My e-spinner arrived two days ago, and my due to my „preperation“ YT recommended your spinning video. I am amazed by all your endeavours and experiments. It‘s so much fun to watch, and it inspires me to try more stuff myself. So, thank you for all of that! Greetings from Germany

@sorceress-crafts 1 month ago

Thank you for this! I've dabbled a bit in natural dyes and I've been looking for the orange dyes, so this is going on my list!
As for the colour intensity - some dyes are activated with heat, so it might happen that the same lichen gives you a deeper colour with boiling compared to solar dye. I have no clue if that's true for usnea though.
Also, lichens give really interesting results of they've been fermented in ammonia beforehand, you can really get some wild colours.

@astomnus8098 1 month ago

Got recommended this video by chance! Very dangerous video, you have me currently eyeing the lichen growing outside and my undyed fiber.

@judyheyboer9847 8 days ago

If you use your blending board and making rolags with them, they will probably draft better

@linr8260 1 month ago

Also, omg crab

@thegingersheep 1 month ago

I am lichen this topic......

@kristinafabianova7139 1 month ago

I have two jars of sundyeing wool with lichens and ammonia on my balcony whole summer, I am afraid of the smell, so I didn't open them - I am afraid the wool dissolved already :D