Tag Archives: natural dyes
Snow and Projects
We should expect the snow, and earlier because we’re in the North now. I always hope that it will take longer for it to finally get here though.
As much as I don’t enjoy the cold, it is beautiful!
Leaves from a bush outside {unknown} on vintage cotton napkins. Iron bath for about an hour.
Men’s Cotton Shirt pulled apart, this is the back. Knotted a couple times and then soaked in coffee for several days.
Section of Men’s Cotton Shirt, alum mordanted, with raspberry leaf prints.
New Project
I’m really excited to start a new dyeing project with cotton.
I started this afternoon, but, of course, forgot to take pictures while working.
I’ll have to remember to take some tomorrow when there’s good natural light. Oh and we saw a snow goose today. So exciting! That’s bird #126.
Soaked
The colour wasn’t quite as strong as I would have liked so I soaked it overnight in the dye bath. I wasn’t sure if this would wreck the prints at all.
Fortunately when I pulled it out the next morning everything was still quite clear.
Amazingly enough the ferns, that I thought had disappointed me by not printing, showed up after the soak.
Leaving it to hang where there was indirect sunlight also might have helped.
The colours shift and morph with the light.
It’s beautiful to watch.
My Favourite Picture So Far
Little berries from the vine on our house – name unknown – wild rose leaves, purple smoke bush, maybe some purple sancherry.
I think the berry prints are absolutely incredible, so perfect!
Unbundled
I wanted a little more colour with this piece so I added 2 frozen purple irises and a whack load of dried oregano to the already murky iron bath from the last silk bundle boil.
I love how the string stripes the outer edge of the fabric.
Coral Bell’s leaf print.
Wild Rose, Purple Smokebush, Faint Coral Bell’s and the greeny one I think was a Purple Sandcherry leaf. Funny that it went green and not purpley. I have no idea why but it’s pretty cool!
Eco Dyed Silk Twill
This is the second length of silk I purchased for my all natural clothing adventure – 4 yards of silk twill bundled and eco dyed.
Laid out with fresh flowers and leaves.
My pretty eco bundle.
How Mordants Work – I think
I’ve been doing some research trying to understand mordants a little better and how they react with everything on the base level. I don’t really understand it all and Chem 101 seems like ages ago and I’m pretty sure did not include this!
Here’s what I found:
Mordant from the Latin word “mordere” – to bite.
Mordants form a coordination complex with your dye substance and the fabric. This attaches the dye to the fabric so that it won’t wash right out.
A coordination complex occurs when iron atoms are bound to silk molecules and plant molecules forming this lovely little chemistry diagram.
From what I understand the iron and rust atoms that are forming this mordant coordination complex attach themselves to the molecules of both the silk and the plant material making these into ligands.
The ligands are the silk or plant molecules bound to iron atoms by coordinate covalent bonds {sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms – in this case one lone pair being shared with the iron or rusty atoms} forming the first coordination sphere.
The first coordination sphere is the ligand directly attached to the metal base atom.
So when you dye, iron and rust molecules grab lone electron pairs from both your solvent dye substance and your fabric and bond them together. Hopefully permanently.
I think :)
What I want to know is:
How does tannin in leaves effect this bonding process?
I’ve read that tannins in a leaf will react with the iron in the water to form better prints.
Why?
If anybody has any information on the chemical composition of the dye process I would love to hear from you. And please correct my chemistry if it needs it. This is a learning process and I really do want to know.
The Boiled One
So far I’ve been steaming all of my eco bundles.
But then the wonderful Monika of Red2White suggested boiling them to actually get proper leaf prints.
I was a little sceptical of boiling to start with because when I was dyeing with the different flowers I didn’t want to get muddled brown. I wanted distinct colour impressions.
But for leaf prints, I realized, I wanted the shape and texture not really the colour so much so it didn’t matter if it got muddled.
I had pressed some leaves and gathered fresh ones and laid them out on a 2 yard piece of flat crepe that I had.
There was a wonderful dark, left over, liquid from previous steamings in the dye pot. I topped this up with water and boiled some big rusty bits in it for a while and then took all but one out.
The crepe was bundled and wrapped tight with string and then popped into the murky muddle for about 3 1/2 – 4 hours. I don’t remember exactly.
It turned out wonderfully!
Close up of maple leaf
Close up of rose leaves and smoke bush leaves
The Final Dye for Dharma
After fooling around with my free Dharma scarf for several dye baths I decided I wanted a finished piece to give my Mummy.
So, seeing as she loves the colour red I thought I’d use the purple sandcherry, which gives redish dye and throw in some dried oregano that I had for good measure. I was going to add red onion skins but I completely forgot.
I spritzed down the scarf with my half and half vinegar and water mix and then laid out the purple sandcherry and dried oregano alternately
This was steamed in the water from the last steaming – now a murky black liquid, I think the iris drippings reacted with the iron overnight and continuous steamings – for half an hour and then allowed to cool before it was unrolled.
The resulting colour was again nothing like I expected.
Again came the blue greens where I thought I would have reds and purples.
Please some one help me out! Is it the alum? The iron? The hodge podge mix?
Not that I minded the resultant glorious dark green with blacks, midnight blues and purply reds in spots.
I was going to let the scarf dry but then thought I would iron it to heat set the colour. A good rinse came next and I thought I was going to lose all the colour because of the amount that came out in the water. A lot of the bluer greens came out and it toned down quite a bit but there was more than enough colour remaining for me.
The iron was applied a second time and then a final rinse.
I’m so pleased I tried the oregano. It turned out beautifully.
The first 9 pictures are unwashed and then the last 3 are of the scarf in its final ness
Bundle the Last
This 15 x 45 was prepared the same way as the others and then had an assortment of dried leaves, date pits, avocado skins, eucalyptus from the previous dye and rusty bits added to it. I had also soaked some green tea leaves and threw those in too.
Bundled, steamed, cooled, unrolled, dryed.
Bundle the Second
This 15 x 45 was treated the same way as the first, spritzed with water/white vinegar and then layed out with foliage and such.
Into this bundle went red onion skins, odds and ends of frozen flowers used in the last piece, some eucalyptus from the original dye, some dried, random leaves and some rusty bits. Again it was rolled around a giant hunk of rusted iron and steamed for an hour, then let cool and unrolled.
Y voila!
Bundle the First
Took one piece 15 x 45 and spritzed it all over with half and half vinegar and water.
Then I sprinkled frozen purple irises, pansies and tulips, fresh purple columbine and blue lupins, dried rose hips, grape hyacinths and wild grapes and rusty bolts, washers and nuts through it. The piece was folded in half and rolled round a giant hunk of rusted iron.
This was steamed for an hour in water with a splash of vinegar in my handy dandy steamer with the other bundles.
Pictures of the piece are wet and dry but not rinsed yet. I’m kind of afraid to loose all that lovely colour :)
Sidepoint: I expected the iris to make a lovely purple as it was an incredible dark purple iris. It did not though, well, not what I expected. It’s still a gorgeous colour but more blue/green and I wonder if this doesn’t have something to do with the fact that the silk was mordanted in alum. In reading about how to make ink with iris – what a lovely thought, notes written in that purple of an ink! – I came across this post that explained that iris with alum makes iris green an ancient and highly prized ink colour.
http://sunsikell.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/green-from-blue/
Rather cool that my silk is dyed with it I think!
3 Bundles
After dyeing the silk it was divided in half – 2 pieces 72 x 45 inches.
Then one piece was divided again into 3 pieces 15 inches wide.
Here are the bundles. Actual content and more pictures to follow.
