Black Knight Scabiosa dye test
Wool - Scoured at least once, white (2.5g)
Plant - Scabiosa atropurpurea 'Black Knight', flowers dried and plucked (1.25-1.5g)
Mordant - Aluminum triformate at 10% WOF (0.25g)
pH - Should be 6 since I didn't add and modifiers
Procedure - Added all ingredients into jar with 1/2 cup of water. Set open jar in saucepan full of water and kept between 50-80 Celsius for 1 hour. Let cool for a few hours then rinsed.
Notes - I've been growing BN scabiosas for a few years with the intention of using them for dye, but regardless of that I'm glad to have discovered them because I really do love how the flowers look and they're easy to take care of (they're even cold-hardy perennials too).
It's been hard to find good information about using them because the anthocyanins that make their colour are delicate so they are not popular amongst natural dyers.
One source said that the dye would be green, but I think they modanted with iron. I've seen scabiosa dyed wool before in a yarn store a few towns over and it was the shade of blue I got so I wasn't surprised.
I found a paper on mordants for anthocyanin dyes, and though I couldn't access the full paper their conclusion was that the best mordant for anthocyanin was tin (stannous chloride) which they compared against alum, iron, and i think chrome. I don't have any stannous chloride but I might get some for next time.
The juice was really dark, startlingly inky, when I go to dye a full 50g batch of yarn with it I might go as low as 25% WOF.
