Walwa Mini- Break mission.

August 21, 2015 in Natural Dyes, Research, Textiles

The mountains across the valley still shrouded in misty fog at 4:34pm.

Recently we went on a mini-break weekend away to the bush retreat that is my folks house. I decided to pack my dye pots too!

I was also grateful that I'd remembered to pack my scarf and beanie and warm woollen things as it was a very cold weekend, most day we did not see the sun till well into the afternoon!

Braving the elements though I did manage to get some sampling done with foliage picked from the garden and something I'd read about in someone else's blog that I wanted to try, black turtle beans.

Black Turtle Beans

I had been doing some reading of other dyestuffs I might try especially in the pursuit of making blues and mauve's. I came across several bloggers who had tried black turtle beans.

http://knitwhatyouexpected.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/how-to-make-blue-using-black-turtle.html

https://waysofthewhorl.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/natural-dyeing-take-3-black-beans/

I did three pots of black bean experiments, the beans were soaked overnight and the quite purplish/ blue liquid carefully drained off the top and separated into three pots.

Bean liquor plus Alum- resulted in a pale mauve/ blue.
Bean liquor plus Alum and vinegar- resulted in a pale mauve/ blue (with more red than the first sample)
Bean liquor plus soda ash- no result.

Angophora

I wanted to try the leaves of the Angophora because although they may look like a Eucalyptus they are actually part of the Myrtle family, so I was keen to see what sort of colours they might supply.

no mordant- result beige/ brown
mordant copper- result olive green

Banksia Giant Candles

I think a darker yellow/orange could have been achieved had I simmered the candles for longer. I would also recommend draining the liquid off before adding the yarn due to the large amount of vegetable matter that came off the candles.

mordant Alum- result pale lemon yellow

Lemon scented Gum

Similar results to the Angophora samples, smells delicious whilst simmering!

no mordant- result beige/ brown
mordant copper- result dark olive green

Salt bush

I did not use any mordants for this sample, the colour is an amazing bright mint green (brighter then the above picture) I will revisit this dyestuff at a later date to see how other mordants change the colour.

Utilising the precious little bit of sun.

Eucalyptus cineraria, Angophora bark, Grevillia robusta, native pine (?), exotic pine (?), Salt bush.

The set-up under the veranda.

The only place to be in the depths of winter.

Retreat to textiles.

June 02, 2015 in Textiles, Other Artwork, Natural Dyes

I enjoy painting but every so often I do feel the lure and pull of textiles and I simply have to do something with them! This may include a bit of sewing or knitting and crochet or something more adventurous like my recent exploration of Natural dyes. I have been experimenting and trying to cover a fuller pallete of colours, I also have come up with an idea to use some of the beautifully coloured yarns that have resulted, and try a new technique.

Natural dyeing

Further experiments with some different dye- stuffs and mordants.

Tumeric powder- Bright yellow.
Ivy leaves- pale greens, dark greens with copper or iron added.
Marigold flowers- Yellows, orange, pale green.
Ballart native cherry- Amazing bright greens. (my photos don't quiet capture the colour)
Thai black rice- mauve, grey with iron added
Eucalyptus- Orange, russet, brighter orange with Alum added, browns with iron added.
Wattles- Knife leafed wattle,Cootamundra wattle and Silver wattle- a range of pale yellowish greens to pale greens, Khaki greens with iron or copper added.

Three types of wattle, Ballart native cherry, Ivy leaves

Wattle, mordants added.

Marigold flowers, Thai black rice, Eucalyptus

I feel like I have covered a range of greens, yellow, oranges and browns but have yet to achieve a good range of red, purples, mauves through to blue. I have been doing some reading about how some of the commonly used plant materials for dyes produce fugitive colours, that means they fade readily. Only time and experience will tell. More experimenting and some research neccessary!

Stay tuned as I still have to have a play with Henna, Cochineal, Beetroot and Indigo, hopefully then I'll have a rainbow of yarns.

Rug Making

My Mum recently took part in a workshop on rug making and she showed me some of the basics so I thought I'd have a go and use my natural dyed yarns for the project. This style of rug making is called 'Hooky' but I believe it is known by many names. It is a very traditional rug making technique and can be made with yarns or with strips of rag. It is made by drawing up loops through a base cloth, in this case hessian and it creates a loop pile surface to the rug. There are dedicated tools for this, the hooks have a short shank and are quite thick. I did not have one of those so a crochet hook has served the purpose reasonably well.

I decided to start small, around doormat sized and go with a really basic design, in fact once I started I simplified it even more.( eliminating the crosses you can see marked on the hessian)

I will post some more progress photos as it grows.

First block complete.

Close up.

Colours from Nature.

October 28, 2014 in Research, Textiles, Natural Dyes

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.