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.

Ice-flower dyeing

I have had to rinse out some of the ice-flower dyeing that I had soaking. I had turned some jars upside down to make sure that the top piece of the fabric wasn't too much paler than the rest, seeing it tends to float and not be as immersed as I would like. But the lid of the container had a slow leak and it was only half full when I looked later.
As I am trying various ways of doing the dyeing, I decided to rinse out both jars of the one method, even though only one jar was leaking. This lot is from the flowers that had been frozen for a year or so and mulberries that had been frozen for a month or so. I had let them thaw out by accident as I had removed them from the freezer and left them too long in a cooler.

It has turned out quite well. The oxalis flowers have given a lovely yellow. I hadn't collected that many of them and was quite pleased with how they turned out. (I will have to help with the weeding again when they flower next year. They are a terrible pest in the garden.)

I had soaked the silk in an alum solution before immersing it in the dyebaths.

The frozen mulberries have come out a little more purple than my previous dyeing with mulberries but that is probably due to the alum in the silk. I had also decided to leave the muslin bag full of mulberries at the bottom of the jar, just to see if contact with the actual berries gave a different amount of dye. It has caused darker patches on the chiffon scarf.

The chiffon scarves took up colour much more strongly than the pongee silk pieces.

The instructions for the process (in Eco Colour) say to put the plant material in muslin and squeeze the liquid out after it has been immersed in warm water.  Now I have some lovely pieces of coloured muslin.  I am not sure if they will be colourfast as they were not mordanted.  But maybe some alum was in the solution after the silk was added.  The muslin turned out darker than the pongee silk also (and much more purple with the mulberries).

I will have to think about what I might do with the muslin.  Perhaps I could tear it into strips and weave with it or use if for felting or embroidery. It will go into my scraps box for now.

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.