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A Peanut Dye Recipe
by Paloma Parra

George Washington Carver is perhaps best known for having discovered 300 uses for the peanut plant. 30 of them were natural dyes. Sadly none of his recipes remain, so I took it upon myself to follow in the steps of the self-described “stove-top” chemist and come up with my own recipe. Using different mordants, yarn fibers or soaking times are sure to provide a lovely variety of results. So go ahead, experiment and become your own stove-top chemist!

You will need:

1 16-oz bag of roasted peanuts (mine were salted). Remove the peanuts from their shells and set the edible portion aside for eating.
50-100 grams of wool yarn. I used 50 grams of sock weight wool. If you are planning on dyeing much more than 100 grams you might want to boil up more peanuts shells.
A large pot you no longer use for cooking.
A bit of copper wire as a mordant.
A couple of days.

Preparing the Dye: Place your peanut shells in a large pot and submerge in water. Place on the stove and bring the water to a boil. Simmer for 1 hour adding more water if needed. (Be warned, boiled peanuts have a rather unusual smell. You may want to open a window if family members object). Once the peanuts have simmered for an hour turn off the heat and leave them to soak overnight.

Preparing the Yarn: If your yarn is in a skein, simply open up the skein and ensure that it is securely tied at a few strategic places so that it won’t tangle in the dye bath. If your yarn is wound into a ball you will need to get out your yarn swift or wind it around the end of a table, chair, or willing volunteer’s outstretched arms to form a wide skein to expose as much of the fiber as possible without letting it tangle.

Place the copper wire in enough water for your yarn to comfortably swim in and boil for 15 minutes; reduce to a simmer and gently add the yarn, taking care not to overly agitate to prevent felting. Simmer yarn in mordant for one hour. Turn off the heat and leave to soak overnight.

Dyeing the Yarn: Strain out the peanut shells and pour the remaining “dye” into your cooking pot. Place the mordanted yarn in the dye bath and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and simmer for an hour. Turn off the heat and soak until yarn is the desired color. (Remember it will lighten slightly once you rinse out the dye.) Remove from the dye bath and rinse in water clear water until the yarn no longer “bleeds” dye. Hang out to dry.

You can read more about Paloma’s projects and ruminations at: www.lasirena.typepad.com.

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