wait...isn't teal a blue-green color?

i had visions of blue-green silk against cream and natural linen. and for once i made test samples before throwing the good yarn in the pot. i made bundles from the silk remnants of my last project, mixed up three mordants; aluminum acetate, tin/tartar, potassium aluminum sulfate, threw in the samples and let them soak for a day or so.

then, today, i mixed up a bit of the teal extract, which made the water a lovely turquoise, applied heat, and tossed in the silk samples. let them soak for an hour, checking every now and then, waiting to see the lovely blue-green develop on the silk. and waited. and waited. green bluish yes, teal, um not really. then, i finally removed them and watched the rinse water run away with the small bit of blue which had developed, leaving a bright green in its wake.

it is a lovely green, but when one wants blue-green, it's not really a happy accident. i had used the extract before on cotton, and the results were a lovely minty blue, exactly what i wanted. one thing i noticed though, is that were the strands came together in the middle of the bundle of silk there is a blue area. so, from this, i can suppose that the tighter areas of overlapping thread hold onto the blue molecules, which is why the cotton fabric is blue, but not the silk thread. another funny thing is that a piece of hemp cloth came out absolutely neon. so, not even the cellulose fibers all acted the same here. ah, the joy of dyeing!