Well it has been a long time decided to start up again as it is a great way to record thoughts, processes and outcomes especially now I have reached the age of forgetting what I was going to do.More into felting now but my latest love is eco dyeing and this does need recording as different mordants make such a difference to the outcome as do the age and type of leaves. It all started in Oz when I found some Silver dollar eucalyptus which I had read about ,so using an old percale sheet of my daughters soaked in vinegar I wrapped the leaves plus sheet around a stick and boiled it up for hours with euc.bark and leaves it smelt heavenly.
The silver dollar leaves come out a lovely peachy orange colour. So once I was back in the UK I bought India Flints book Eco Colour,I know she is the Queen of eco dying but what an irritating book to try and follow,it jumps about all over the place and what it really all boils down to is you need to try it out yourself because of water type, different plants and trees so I need to keep a record of what I have done both successes as well as failures.
I have done most of the testing on paper as cheaper alternative but it has been mordanted first then clamped and steamed in an old electric frying pan.
the fabric I steam in a steamer that I got brand new in a junk shop for £2.00 a great find ,as I would n't want to cook in either of these items.
paper soaked in Alum with horse chestnut leaves gave a delicate imprint
Copper mordant with mistletoe leaves and rose.
top tannic acid below soya milk and alum
Iron produces great leaf prints and also tints the paper rose leaves usually give a good result as do sycamore.
the darkest result came from a common weed found in the garden it is called herb robert and has a small pinky mauve flower and red stems it likes to grow in stony place like paths it grow all over the place here so I am glad that I have a use for it will have to try it out on some material.
these two pieces of cloth were mordanted with iron above is rose and bramble leaves and below is sycamore seem to get a good print with iron but it come out dark grey to black so rather than getting the colour from the leaf it is the leaf reacting with the iron
3 comments:
You have some pretty results.One day I will try the bundles.I read reviews of the book and decided not to buy,but I did get her recent Blurb book,pretty pictures but not much detail.
thanks for your comment.
I'd love to try this!! how do I start????
Hi Gill there is a lot about eco dyeing on blogs and pinterest is a good source of info. but it really boils down to trying out different leaves and hoping
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