I visited my mom last weekend, and on Sunday morning before I flew home we dyed some of her handspun yarn with coffee! We used the book Harvesting Color as a reference (it doesn't have specific instructions for coffee, so we used the master dye bath recipe).
We mordanted by simmering with alum for an hour the on Sunday morning, then rinsed the yarn with hot water and simmered it in very, very strong coffee for 90 minutes. Then I had to go to the airport, so we turned the heat off and let the yarn cool in the dye bath until Sunday evening, when my mom rinsed, thwacked, and hung the yarn to dry.
It is a lovely golden brown color - but not what we expected. I think we both expected a darker, less golden, more "dirt" brown color. But in any case, it is beautiful, and we had fun!
We mordanted by simmering with alum for an hour the on Sunday morning, then rinsed the yarn with hot water and simmered it in very, very strong coffee for 90 minutes. Then I had to go to the airport, so we turned the heat off and let the yarn cool in the dye bath until Sunday evening, when my mom rinsed, thwacked, and hung the yarn to dry.
It is a lovely golden brown color - but not what we expected. I think we both expected a darker, less golden, more "dirt" brown color. But in any case, it is beautiful, and we had fun!
It is a beautiful color!
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