Dyeing, printing, painting and Lockdowns.

September 10, 2021 in Research, Textiles, Other Artwork, Natural Dyes, Botanical Art

Finding myself with more hours at home what better way to spend it by expanding my investigation of local natural dyestuff and then turning it into something useful!

This started during the 2020 COVID lockdown and is set to continue for however long we find ourselves in this current lockdown. It has been difficult not being able to go to work, but my situation is certainly more more secure than many others, for which I am grateful. The bonus time is wonderful for this kind of exploration and fun with fabric!

The Exotics That Crept In

I started a solar dye with some of the abundance of Marigold flowers that were blooming in my garden. I left it for three days in the sun. Stupidly expecting yellow/orange, I got a lovely mottled green.

METHOD

100gms of yarn

about 1 litre of boiling water

150gms of fresh Marigold flower heads

Large sealed Jar

Sun

Marigold flowers

Sunflower seeds

I threw some sunflower seeds in my garden and they came up beautifully only to be all but gobbled down by snails or slugs. The few that made it grew large and flowered with big heads. Great food for my chooks I thought! When the flowers had finished, I was checking the seeds to see if they were dry and noticed that my finger tips were a brilliant bright purple. I remembered reading somewhere in my online research about sunflowers used as dye. So I apologised to the chickens who got lettuce instead and got out my dye pot!

METHOD

Approx. 100gms of Wool crepe soaked in alum water

1 litre of boiling water

Seeds from a Large sunflower head

Large sealed Jar

Sun

The colour took to the fabric almost immediately but I left it to steep for a couple of days. The colour can be shifted towards pinks (see above pic) with the addition of citric acid, or towards a blue/gray with the addition of soda ash.

Indigo Day

I had a day with my Indigo pot which had been sorely neglected. It had completely dried out and a strange bunch of crystals had formed at the bottom of the pot that I wish I had photographed! I was unsure if I would be able to revive it, my google search didn’t turn up much so I just thought nothing ventured nothing gained.

I filled it with warm water and whisked up the crystals until they dissolved back into a liquid. I then skimmed off any detritus that floated on the surface and began to gently heat the pot up to 50 degrees. I checked the PH and adjusted then added the Hydros. The pot came back beautifully.

I had a few pieces of cloth that I thought the printing and colour wasn’t great on so I thought they would make great mottled dark blue and green fabrics for my bags. For the green I dyed the cloth in Turmeric first.

A Bundle of Dyeing

I needed to expend my fabric stash and also wanted to try printing with some leaves, twigs and other vegetation that had been presoaked in mordant.

I had some beautiful medium weight wool crepe and some newly purchased fine wool crepe, as well as the final remnants of some doctor flannel that Mum had stashed for years.

With these experiments I was trying to keep some of the greens and produce colour variety. By introducing some dye material that had been soaked first in mordant, in this case iron or copper as well as unsoaked material it broadened the range of colours produced. I got browns from pale through to dark chocolate browns, almost black, some great purple tones and yes, green!

Painting

The exhibition schedule has all been postponed. Looking always for the silver lining, it has given me more time to paint and to prepare work in advance for when everything opens up again. Also time to check some other neglected things off the to do list, like finally joining The Botanical Artist Society of Australia and updating this website! Below is a few pictures of the painting I’ve been up to in the last 12 months. Some is commission work, some for teaching, some Exhibition work and some just for fun.

Avocardo's, Iris and Some Ancient Dye Stuff.

November 26, 2017 in Natural Dyes, Research, Textiles, Hearth and Home

New experiments with natural dye..

With the return of the sun and the warmer weather, I have returned to experimenting with some dyes!

COMING SOON

Eco-printed handmade textiles....

"Quiet a few exotics here but rest assured the natives are getting a look in, watch this space for more on that score shortly".

Dabbling in the exotic- Alkanet and Sappen Wood

I ordered both these dyes online, as I was interested to try these ancient dyestuffs. The processes and the colours for both intrigued me so I had to try it out.

The Alkanet root is in powder form and must be pre-soaked in alcohol to release the colour because it is not water soluble.

I did two samples of 30 grams of wool; one with alum as the mordant and one with iron. I soaked the alkanet powder, about 10gms in some methylated spirits for a few days beforehand.

Both samples were simmered for approx 30 minutes or until the colour was taken up.

I think that I needed to up the amount of alkanet powder for the amount of yarn I used to achieve stronger colours.

1.Dark Violet gray with Iron, 2. Flesh pink with  alum, 3-4. soft rosy pinks alum with soda ash. — 1.Dark Violet gray with Iron, 2. Flesh pink with alum, 3-4. soft rosy pinks alum with soda ash.

Sappan wood or Brazilwood is a dye from the heartwood of the tree. Chalk (calcium carbonate) can make a difference to the colour that this dye produces. No chalk will result in shades of orange, while adding chalk to the dye bath will result in pinks, reds to crimson. It is sensitive to the PH of the water; acids (vinegar or citric acid) will make the colour more orange and alkalis (soda ash) will give you blue reds, crimsons and purples. The addition of Iron will shift to colour towards lavenders.

I did not have any chalk handy so I used quickeze tablets for settling upset tummies as a substitute as the main ingredient is calcium carbonate.

I did four samples- (pictured above from left to right)

1 quickeze tablet, 1/4 teaspoon iron
1 quickeze tablet, 1/4 teaspoon alum, simmer approx. 30 minutes.
1 quickeze tablet, 1/4 teaspoon alum, 1 teaspoon soda ash, simmer approx. 30 minutes.
The fourth sample was the same as the third only I soaked it for 24 hours instead of boiling. The resulting colour was slightly brighter than sample 3.

Native Ballart Cherry Solar Dye

I have experimented a bit with the native Ballart cherry, but never using solar dye as my process. The results were surprising and promising.

Place leaves in a glass jar with 50 grams of wool. Cover with boiling water, add 1/4 a teaspoon of alum. Leave in full sun for approximately 1 week.

Place leaves in a glass jar with 50 grams of wool. Cover with boiling water, add 1/4 a teaspoon of iron. Leave in full sun for approximately 1 week.

So the results are a beautiful warm dark yellow and a dark cedar green!

A Tiny Experiment with Iris flowers and Solar Dye

I am not overly interested in using exotics for my dyeing but I was seduced by the bright purple flower heads in my garden and curious as to what I'd get. What I ended up with was not what I anticipated! The water after a day or so was quite purple as expected then it started to turn to a reddish purple.

Remove flower heads from foliage, place in a glass jar with boiling water and leave in full sun for a week.
Remove flower heads and add 10 grams of wool and a small amount of alum, leave in sun for a further week.

The result after the week were a soft lichen green.

Back on the Dark Side- Avocado Pits

This is my first time dyeing with avocado pits, as with the Iris flowers these are exotic but I can see a lot of potential here, just for fun!

10 avocado pits per 100 grams of wool, add a 1/4 teaspoon iron

I simmered for 1/2 an hour, then sprinkled a pinch or two of soda ash over the wool, but I did not stir, this will produce pink speckles where the soda ash sits on the yarn.

I ended up with a soft lavender yarn with a very random salmon pink speckle running through it. Quite lovely, very subtle colours.

Further investigation needed, I want to see how far I can push the salmon pinks to burgundys and the mauves to purples. For that I'll need loads of pits!!

Wet on the washing line, and dry in a hank.

In Hope of Inspiring Others

March 12, 2017 in Natural Dyes, Teaching, Textiles, Research

I was invited by a friend who is a member of the NSW Knitters Guild, Queanbeyan chapter to come and talk at their meeting about Natural Dyeing and give a demonstration. It was lovely talking to fellow lovers of yarn and sharing what I have learned. Amazingly I even came away a winner, which I was totally chuffed about!

I thought I'd share with you the results of my demonstrations and take this opportunity to thank the Queanbeyan Group, NSW Knitters Guild for having me. I hope I have inspired some of you to look differently at some of your pantry items and think about carrying secateurs as well as knitting needles on your person... just in case!

The following experiments are all done with 50 grams of wool.

Eucalyptus

I wanted to demo dyeing with Eucalyptus because the results are almost always guaranteed and unexpected for those new to natural dyeing.

Simmer leaves for approx. 25 minutes before adding wet yarn.Simmer for a further 30- 45 minutes or until desired colour is reached. Make sure your yarn is fully immersed and gently move your yarn around during this time to ensure even dyeing.

Black Beans

For this experiment I wanted to achieve a darker blue than I have got in previous attempts with black turtle beans so I intensified the quantities.

300 grams of black beans soaked overnight in 1 litre of water. Carefully drain off the bean water into a jar trying not to disturb the beans too much. Then add 1 desert spoon of Alum, stir then soak overnight, stirring every now and then.

Turmeric resist

I wanted to try some resist techniques on yarn dyeing, so for this experiment I tied off sections of my skein with florists tape before dyeing the yarn.

It was simply turmeric powder from the supermarket simmered in about 1.5 litres of water for about 20 minutes. No mordant.

Beetroot powder from Aldi

I picked up some Beetroot powder from Aldi supermarket recently, it has the same ingredients listed as the Natural Beet powder from Kraftkolour, Beta vulgaris. The Aldi powder is paler in colour so I was interested to see what the results would be.

On the day we did a ball dyed experiment with the Aldi beetroot powder.

In a small saucepan with about 1 .5 litres of water, 1 teaspoon of iron and 2 desert spoons of the beet powder simmered for approx. 20 minutes.

The results were very interesting although I suspected a little tainted because I had just used the same saucepan to simmer the Turmeric in and I think it needed a better clean out with a scourer before it was used again. Having said that I quite liked the results which I called "cotton candy" but my partner said "No, it's Neapolitan, like the ice cream!" I think his name is better.

I did some further experiments with the Aldi Beet powder the next day.

Test 1- 1 desert spoon of Alum, 1 desert spoon of beet powder.

Simmer (do not boil) in about 1.5 litres of water for approx. 20 minutes.

Test 2- 1/2 teaspoon of iron, 1 desert spoon of beet powder, 20mls of vinegar.