Eco Dyeing when you don't really know what you are doing

I have a couple of friends who went away for what sounds like a fabulous time with India Flint last year. I think it was last year, it may have been this year. Time seems to be losing its meaning. No, I'm pretty sure it was about a year ago.

They came home with some stunning dresses, wraps and pieces of fabric. So we got together and made some dresses - well, I may never wear mine, it just doesn't look dress-shaped. But we cut and sewed and had a lovely time.
They got their act together and dyed theirs and have been wearing them - gorgeous.
I put mine in a plastic bag to protect it from the moths. After quite a few months, I took it to our get-together last week and actually wrapped it up into an eco-dyeing bundle.

I am not altogether sure what was in the bundle. I took some stuff that I had collected years ago for eco-dyeing. I even took some very old (withered) avocado pips, some very desiccated hollyhock flowers from at least a year ago and some dried up eucalyptus leaves.
I bundled it all up and, on the insistence of my friends and with their help, put in some old pieces of iron, then wrapped it around a copper pipe.

Into the water it went and it boiled for an hour or two, while we had a very good lunch, chat and generally pleasant time.

Then I brought it home and put it in the glasshouse, to keep doing whatever is it that is does. One of the ladies had also done a dress and sent us a pic of hers today. So I thought I had better look at mine. Lo and behold, there were mouldy bits! It could be lucky that I actually rinsed it out today.

It is presently drying in the high winds we are having  - gotta love spring.

It is remarkably square! I am still not convinced I will ever wear it but it does look very interesting. There are some purple spots in it, I think they are from the old hollyhock flowers rather than the avocado pits. Those hollyhocks are well worth the effort.

There will no NO pictures of me wearing the dress. But it is lovely fabric. Merino-silk.

Christmas inertia

I am trying to overcome the inertia that you get once Christmas is over.  Boxing Day was ok, I had a few things to do - and avoided all shopping centres.
But I had put today aside to finally do something with the frozen flowers.

So far I have soaked some silk in alum solution. I did that a couple of days ago and today I actually got some flowers out of the freezer and soaked them in lukewarm water, as recommended by India Flint.
I am using two books: Eco-Colour by India Flint and Colours from Nature by Jenny Dean.
India recommends putting the frozen flowers in a bag that can be squeezed to get the colour out, so I have used cotton gauze.  It usually takes some of the colour and I have kept those bits for machine embroideries. This time, though, the gauze has not been soaked in alum and neither have the flowers. So I used the water I had soaked the silk in, in case there is any alum left in it.

The hollyhocks have given some purple colour, almost immediately. I diligently squeezed the mass of flowers, they end up feeling really squishy and slightly disgusting. The colour was very pale, so I am leaving the fabric in with the frozen flowers and hoping that more colour will leach out. I will leave it for a few days.
I tried this previously and the plant matter started to rot and gave me some stains, so I will have to keep an eye on it, not leave it as long as I did previously. But I have also thought that it might not rot if it is under the liquid, so I have weighed it all down with a jar.  Here's hoping.
The gardener in the family has been doing daily harvesting of dandelion flowers for me. I read that you can use them for dyeing - and it stops them from seeding and causing more plants to grow in our garden, where we don't really want them.

I had initially thought that I might get yellow dye but when I read the book last night, it was under the Green section.  And when I looked at the frozen pile I realised that it is predominantly green.

So far it is looking a very murky brown-green-yellow colour, and rather pale.  I may have to overdye that fabric.  At least the alum is supposed to be ok environmentally and I can put the plant matter in the compost heap.

Simple Onion Skin Dyeing

Today's date is 1/3/13, I just have to do a post.
So ...
In a recent post, I mentioned using onion skins to dye my silk scarf.  Then I realised that I hadn't posted about it, so here it is.
It was very easy actually.  I used India Flint's Eco Colour again (getting value for having bought the book!).
I laid out the scarf, folded it in half lengthways, and the put pieces of onion skin, laid out artistically of course, along the scarf.  Then I sprayed it with vinegar, rolled it up and put it in a ziplock bag.  I left it out in the glasshouse (during the December summer weather) for 10 days.  I rinsed it a couple of times, with a small amount of vinegar in the final rinse.

I had used a small amount of red onion and red onion skin and that showed up too.

The trials of Christmas

I read about freezing flowers, in India Flint's book, Eco Colour, and thought I would give it a go.  That was about 18 months ago.  I have frozen oxalis flowers and camellia petals.  I keep thinking I should re-read what to do with them and actually do it.
I also collected some mulberries a few weeks ago and froze those too.
Now it is the Christmas get-together-and-eat-badly time.  I decided to resurrect a frozen chocolate cheesecake recipe from years ago to take with me to Christmas lunch.  It will definitely contribute to the eat badly theme - cream cheese, chocolate, caster sugar, cream and eggs.
This has involved remembering where all the cooking implements are, how to organise the ingredients and implements properly and then making room in the freezer to get the cheesecake ready - oh no, the freezer is full.
Most of the stuff in the freezer was food but there were also those packets of petals and mulberries.  I desperately needed the room so out came the book to find out what I might try to do with the dyeing plantstuff.
Then down to the glasshouse, where I keep my dyeing supplies, to start using some of the bits that can no longer stay in the freezer.  It wasn't the perfect day for this, the forecast temperature was 39C (102F) and working in the glasshouse wasn't that appealing.  Fortunately it started off cool and has gradually got hotter.  
I took the scarves that I had dyed using mulberries, one that had a blue patch and two that had come out very pale pink.

I just spread the frozen mulberries in the scarves and put them in jars for some cold (not so cold in this weather) dyeing. I added a little bit of alum to the water as I read that it encourages a bluer colour and I thought that might hide the single blue spot on the darker scarf. The water certainly has a more purple colour than the mulberry dyeing I did recently.

I was also told by a woman I met recently, who is a member of the Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens Plant Craft Cottage Group, that the salty water I soaked the silk in for the mulberry dyeing is not a mordant and that the colour may fade in a couple of years. Hopefully the alum will address this issue.

I feel as if I was just making it up as I went but that is the sort of vibe I get from India's book.  Here's hoping I haven't just wasted all that vegetation and the scarves.

So now they are sitting in their jars and I have to contain my desire to go and see how they are doing.  Maybe I will just forget about them, like I have been doing with the frozen petals. Hopefully I will be able to look at them in the next couple of weeks, not 18 months down the track.

The petals are now in a coolbox with ice packs while I decide what to do with them.  It is too hot, and I am too exhausted from remembering how to cook, to do any more today. Maybe on Boxing Day.

Dyeing with mulberries

We have some mulberry trees in our garden because we used to keep silkworms in our classrooms.  The eggs used to hatch before the leaves opened on local mulberry trees (there are a surprising number of them around the streets nearby).  So research was done (by the gardening enthusiast in the family) and it was found that there is a different sort of mulberry tree that has its leaves earlier than the ones we had been using.  Three trees were planted in our yard.
Over the years, we haven't had a great crop of mulberries for humans - the possums and birds and rats have loved them.  Maybe it was the breaking of the drought or maybe the rumour that there is a Powerful Owl in the area and that it has reduced the possum and rat population is true.  Whatever the reason, there is a good crop of berries this year.  We thought about eating them but a) they are not that tasty, b) there are a LOT of them and c) the stems are really hard to get out.  So, as the birds do very colourful dropping on our washing at this season, I thought the berries might be good for dyeing.

Important note:  after picking the mulberries, check the bottoms of your shoes before walking around the house!!

I looked up my Eco Colour by India Flint, various online sites (eg, here and here and here) and have come up with some varied instructions for using berries in dyeing.
Several of my resources mentioned that a good mordant for berry dyeing is half a cup of salt to 8 cups of water.
All the sources say to cut up the fruit, or mash it, and boil it to get a dye bath from plant material (except India Flint, who recommends freezing it. I have put some aside in the freezer, that will have to be a different experiment).  Most say to boil the dye bath for an hour but one said that for red and yellow, you shouldn't do it so long, the heat destroys the colour.
Because I have used various sources, and because most of them say to experiment, I have made up my own way of doing it.  This is partly because I think I didn't read all the sources correctly and so have made some errors.  I get a bit confused when I switch back and forth between 'recipes'.
However ... this is what I have done.
I put 3 cups of berries in 6 cups of water and brought it to the boil for about 5 minutes.  Then I let it sit overnight - one of the links had said that I could get stronger colour if I left the plant material in to soak longer.
The various sources say to soak the fabric in the salty solution but they are not consistent on how long, whether to boil the fabric in it or to put it in the dye solution.  So I have soaked the fabric (did I mention that I am using silk?) in the solution overnight also (only because I had already put it in before I decided to let the dye bath soak overnight). The salt solution and fabric were brought to the boil and let simmer for an hour.  I did this because I thought the heat might help the fabric to absorb the mordant better but I don't want to boil the dye bath any more.  There are various sources that suggest that you can prepare the fabric with the mordant before putting it in the dye bath, so I hope that it will work for a salt mordant.

Now it is sitting in the dye bath and I am waiting 'patiently' to see what will eventuate.

Growing Your Own Dyes

I'm not a very serious dyer but a member of the household is a keen gardener. So when she was thinking about what plants to buy to grow I facetiously (did you know this word has all the vowels in order and even includes y??) suggested buying something I could use to dye with.
Saffron was one of the plants on offer from Green Harvest. Apparently it grows well here in Victoria.  The order arrived today and out we went, looking for a good place to plant it.

Don't be holding your breath waiting for me to report on this - it apparently takes a lot of flowers to get enough saffron for dyeing, or cooking.  But it is fun to think of what we can have growing that I might use for dyeing.  And saffron doesn't just give you a colour that is green or brown or a pale yellow. I did once get some lovely yellow fabric using oxalis. I had picked it and frozen it.  I think I read about it in India Flint's book, Eco Colour.

Here is an interesting link about dyeing with saffron.

We have silver beet growing too and when I wash it before cooking, the water turns a pale green.  I must look it up to see if it is good for dyeing - but that seems a waste when it is good for eating.
As I said, I am not that serious about dying my own fabric.

There is another thing that might slow down my dyeing - I do it in the greenhouse.  I moved in there during the drought when it was pointless to be trying to propagate plants.  Now that the drought is over (we hope), there is a growing need for the glasshouse to return to its original purpose.  I think I can retain a corner for my dyeing, I'll have to tidy up and organise my things for the odd occasion when I will be doing some more dyeing.  I only seem to do it when I have a project in mind and there is nothing occurring to me at present.

India Flint dyeing video

One of the ladies in the Aus/NZ art quilt group posted a link to a very interesting India Flint short video.

I have also found a 5 day retreat she is doing later in the year at Crockett Cottage Studio in Mansfield, Victoria.
When we studied dyeing last year in my course, I read India Flint's book and found some very interesting ideas in it. I had fun dyeing and could be doing some now, while the bark is falling off the trees. But it is hot and my setup is in the glasshouse, so that's not an enticing option at the moment.