Colours from Nature.

More fun with Natural Dyes.

A continuation of experiments with natural dyestuffs this time adding some different mordants to see how the colours are affected.

The set up.

Some materials.

Boiling up red onions.

Wattle leaves.

Acacia cultriformis, knifed leafed wattle

Pole Wrapping.

Pole wrapping is bassically a length of fabric that is bound around a pole and dyed to give different effects. You will get some areas where the dye does not penetrate the fabric as much creating random patterns. For this wrap experiment I took a length of handwoven fabric, woven in cotton and wool. Wool takes up the natural dyes much more readily than the cotton. It was laid out and I scattered an assortment of leaves and flowers over the top and then rolled it up around a length of dowel. It was then bound tightly with string.

Pole wrapping.

Showing the fabric and leaves before it is bound around a pole with string and put into a dyebath.

Dyebath.

Unfortunately we did not have a giant pot so I had to keep turning it every so often.

Unbinding.

After the dyebath in which it simmered for about an hour it was wrapped in plasitic and left in the sun for a couple of days.

The back.

You can see how the cotton did not take up the dye.

Finished.

This is one end of the fabric, the bindings made beautiful marks as did the leaves.

Mordants.

The mordants we used in these experiments were Vinegar, copper, iron.

We were unable to source some Alum this time round but plan to use it in the next round of dyeing.

Yarns and samples.

Keeping records.

The Colour range so Far....

The plant materials we have used include-

1. Eucalyptus mannifera, Brittle gum
2. Eucalyptus bridgesiana, Apple box
3. Acacia cultriformis, Knife leafed wattle
4. Acacia baileyana, Cootamundra wattle
5. Red onions
6. Ivy leaves
7. An pale pink gum blossom- as yet unidentified.

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All Natural

A very good friend of mine who teaches Art and Design recently went along to a natural dyemaking course. She later wanted to continue with some experiments at home so she invited me to join her. It was somewhat of a refresher for both of us as we had touched on the process a little in our course at Canberra school of Art. However she had a few new ideas for us to try.

Boiling up the leaves.

It is a lovely process of collecting and boiling up the leaves. You never know exactly what your going to get. Results can vary due to the time of year, growing conditions and other factors. One thing I learned was I need to brush up on my tree identification so you know what is what!

The Proscess

Wattle and white wool

Before and after

The Results

Wattle

It is actually a little greener than it appears in the photo. I used mostly leaves as the blossoms were all but finished.

Eucalyptus mannifera and a rusty spanner

The iron spanner made the colour darker, more brown than orange.

Eucalyptus bridgesiana

Eucalyptus mannifera

We didn't use any modants in this round of experimenting, apart from throwing in the rusty spannner but that was quite experimental. Commonly used mordants for wool include Iron, Copper, Tin, Chrome and Alum. They can effect the colours and ensure the dye is colourfast. we will play with some of these next time, stay tuned for the results,