Some of you know that I am now interested in reduce the stress on my arms due to a shoulder operation. So….meet Persi, short for Persimmon. I met him at an antique mall masquerading as a sausage stuffer.
Persi with the full press on the persimmons
Persi will be replacing my cedar post, which was used to smash the persimmons. I would put the soaked persimmons in a 5 gal bucket and smash away.
Put persimmons in 5 gal bucket, proceed to smash to release juice and expose seeds for more tannin
Now, I soak the persimmons as usual and then move them into a paint strainer bag and let Persi have at them. Actually he works fairly well, breaking the skin and releasing the juice. I still need to do some repairs on the o-ring to reduce leakage but progress is being made!
Swinging lid to put in mesh bag of soaked persimmons
He is made of iron, so I will always be adding a bit of sadness to my color. I decided to run some shirts thru the bath that came out of the press to see how sad the color was. Looks good to me! These shirts started out as beige and brown and the yellow shining thru.
Persimmon juice on shirts
debmcclintock 
You do have a way with color! How did your talk go at the Textile Museum?
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Hi Lulu, sorry, I did not see your question until now. My talk went very well at the Textile Museum…I had over 30 attendees, many museum associate research staff and lots of good questions. It is always fun to show the different cloths with the different looms used to make the cloth. There are very subtle differences and on some no difference at all. One wonders at all the directions that folks have taken with simple looms to create wonderful textiles! I have started another blog, http://simplelooms.wordpress.com I will try to update it at least once a month with all the different looms. take care Deb Mc
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Hi Deb, I tried to go to your website but another similar website https://simplelooms.com/ created by my friends Chris Buckely and Sandra Sardjono shows up. I can not go to your looms website. Just wondering what happened.
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Simplelooms is my website, I did do a book review of Chris & Sandra’s book on that website, maybe that is what you saw. But thanks for the heads up, I’ll double check the link in my posting.
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Yep, the link in the original post is correct and the website is indeed mine. Not sure how you got onto my other blog, Simplelooms.Here is the link that is in the original post. https://debmcclintock.me/2013/08/06/meet-persi/
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Think Persi is a real good idea and I know you will be good friends! Certainly will aid you and keep you from using that arm and shoulder.
Love, Mom
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What a great contributor to your practice as a dyer. Three cheers for Persi!
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Can I ask for a little bit of help? I have my persimmons, soaked them so they were soft. I’ve squished them into pulp and added more water. To use them, do I strain out the persimmons and use the water they were in, or do I pour off some of the water into another container and dye? Is there ever too much water for them to be sitting in?
I am looking into containers so that i can cap these and save them and the liquid to try again next year, too.
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I drain the water and use that as the bath. I strain thru a cheesecloth and a small coffee filter. I add a little more water to dip skeins or fabric in but not much. You might want to save the dye bath to use again and need to keep liquid volume small for storage. Always cap tightly or it will mold. Dip your skein or cloth, squeeze the liquid thru the substrate and let sit in liquid 5 or 10 minutes. Squeeze all dye water out. Allow to dry in sun, rotate it and dip again if desired. You go from a nice yellow to a rich gold with repetitive dips if you have a nice white color to start with!
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I usually hold back a couple of soak batches for the multi year aging. It gets strained and stored without using any for dye in the current year.
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