Category: Natural Dyes

Posted in Indigo Dreams, Natural Dyes, Probably talking to just myself, tansy

the greens of summer

Posted on by arlee

Above, that’s actually a photo from 2010. “There was a gigormous patch of it by the tracks so i headed there eagerly. Just as i got to the edge of the embankment, i heard a train and caught out of the corner of my eye one of the machines they use to keep track (narf) of the rails and trespassers, coming around the corner. Guess who was trespassing actually? Guess who fortunately (?) was so startled that she fell down the embankment into a tansy forest????? They never saw me, even backing up and looking while i flattened myself out on the ground down the edge. I felt guilty and silly at the same time, elated too 🙂 I snuck the camera out of my bag in case one tromped over and asked what the hell this middle aged frazzle haired freakwoman was doing lying on her face on CPR property in the weeds. Umm, taking pictures because i’m a botany specialist? HA! Got a BIG bag of tansy after they toodled back the way they came.”

As much as i love the results i’ve got with “traditional” natural dyes (ie the ones i have to buy, like madder–still waiting till the fall to harvest mine, indigo, cutch, osage, logwood etc), i love a good walk, with the DogFaced Girl of course :), to forage what i know are proven dye plants in my area.

My last big excursion with local plants for natural dye was a couple of years ago, and the results weren’t great. I was never sure if it was because the tansy was picked from a site that had previously been a (probably) highly contaminated ground for a gas station, or if it was just a bad year for colour. This year though there’s ACRES of the darn stuff, a highly invasive plant in the neighbourhood. I decided to try again, and my first excursion yielded the picking of 3.2 kilos (7.05lbs), barely a drop in the bucket even in my immediate area! I’ll be picking more, as there’s probably 1000 times that, no exaggeration, within the 3 block radius i pick in! It can be dried, but sometimes the shades are browner or weaker. That being said, it’s a good base to overdye with other colours: indigo for the most spectacular greens, madders for warmer yellow tones, or oranges and corals, and who knows what with quebracho rojo or cutch? I’ll be testing those as well.

When the flowers are gone, picked or naturally drying/dying on the plant, i can collect the leaves for greener yellows too.

I seriously upped the WOF this year as well, using twice the amount of plant matter per weight of cloth. YUM. This is YELLOW, a cool one, unlike the warmth of osage, but i do love the various shades with different yellow plants. When foraging locally too, the likelihood is that most plants are going to give yellows or greens, but post mods and other dyes can really extend the colour range. I can’t gather enough Solidago (Goldenrod), as the varieties that grow here are really mingy stunted little varieties. Ah, i miss the Ontario ones for colour, and beauty! (Not that i knew that when i lived there, oh so many many years ago…..)

So,

Amazing what one plant, some pre and post mods, and 1 overdye colour can do. Note: these are all silk velvet, with tests to come on cotton and silk habotai.

 

Posted in Home Cookin' the Cloth, journal: lessons to learn, mordants and modifiers

beautiful mistakes

Posted on by arlee

When chemistry has its own way.

I bet i couldn’t replicate this if i tried…..I had used this tannin bath already twice, and it was filtered water, but the tannin had started to oxidize, and it also showed me that either my filtered water system leaves some iron in, or that the original scouring had left a residual, BUT it’s the most gorgeous silver and fawn i’ve ever seen. The right side is actually the bottom edges, and the left is the middle where it was folded over a rod to hang to dry. The iron migrated then to the bottoms so it was still pretty “loose”.

I’m hoping that after a good rinse, it’s much the same. (Silk velvet)

Posted in cochineal, cutch, Madder, mordants and modifiers, Natural Dyes, osage, quebracho rojo

naturally dyed silk velvet

Posted on by arlee

I’ve had a love affair with velvet since i was 12 and found a Vogue magazine that advised “A pant of lavender panne velvet is the essential in a bohemian styled wardrobe.” I’m not sure *how* i thought my 60cent an hour babysitting jobs were going to finance the purchase of an $800 garment, but that was obviously beside the point (I’ve never forgotten that quote either…) Natural dyes coupled with silk velvet have me quite giddy at the moment. 😍

I just have to fire up the indigo pot, do some dye combinations and extend the colour range a bit more as we need greens, blues, purples, almost-blacks, different pinks!

Listings will start on July 5th, with 2 differently sized packs, and as always, i refund any extra shipping paid!

Posted in a collusion of ideas, Natural Dyes

germs

Posted on by arlee

I should be/am slowly working on Samara, but i keep returning to the ethnic embroideries of Central Asia.

What if i did this sort of thing:

with these?

Admittedly, silk velvet , *any* velvet is a bitch to sew, slipping, sliding and slithering everywhere but where it’s supposed to go, BUT. I have more patience now with my work, and intend to this all by hand, so maybe a lot of pinning and bulldog clipping?

Or mix with some of the other recent textured fabrics? Yup.

Perhaps some indigo again?

what shape will this one become?

 

Posted in cutch, Madder, Natural Dyes

richness

Posted on by arlee

Cutch and madder on silk velvet, MOAN. Can’t wait to work with these beauties! Admittedly i wanted the madder red on the velvet like the last few cotton results, but this deep rose is yumshy, wonderful with that foxy cutch!

Posted in cutch, journal: lessons to learn, Natural Dyes

cutchy cutchy coo, and fabric woes and lows

Posted on by arlee

Every dyer knows about walnuts for deep browns. Walnuts don’t grow in Alberta. I have some frozen ones still, sent by a generous friend in Ontario, and intend to dig them out, but needed some browns *now*.

Cutch yields chocolate, toffee, cinnamon, clove, mocha—mm, all delicious sounding 🙂 I’ve wanted to try it since i started noticing it in my “ethnic” embroidery research (India and the Mid/Central Asian regions), and for Mother’s Day, my darling son ordered me some (cutch extract) from Maiwa!

Cutch is a tannin and a dye, much like walnuts, quebracho rojo, or pomegranate. (Most of my fibres are previously mordanted though, as i like having them ready to go when the dyeing mood strikes. Pieces i want to overdye after the cutch, are already then tannined, in fact double tannined :).) I wasn’t impressed at first with the action in the dyepot, seeing a “nice” brown with distinctly pink overtones, but since it has to simmer for 2 hours, cool overnight, and there are many ways to shift the colour, i just let it be.

Recommended WOF being 20 to 50%, i used 30%. These fibres have been previously mordanted, with the exception of the lace far right.

I’d call most of these “mocha”, maybe even “mocha coral” :), vintagey, homey, warm and soft. The silk velvet obviously did the best at uptake, a rich foxy shade.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

That cotton lace is a dense, heavily “woven” chunk.  And when i say “woven”, yes i am aware that lace is more a thread manipulating process than weaving. I’d love to see the machines that wind these threads into these patterns! BUT, yesterday when i took the darkest piece out in the sun to check the actual colour, WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, this is 100% cotton—except for the trapped fibres of plastic/synthetic in it: see the shiny bits, especially at left and top? Plastic is SO prevalent and polluting in our world, and we tend to take for granted that when we buy cotton, it will be uncontaminated by synthetics, but i’m guessing this place either makes synthetic laces as well, or fibres from plastic packaging of the original cotton getting trapped in the machine. Perhaps we should ask now for labels that say “made in a facility where nuts, gluten, what, soy and plastics are also used/manufactured….”

 

 

The newest “trend” in fabrics is abhorrent: hyberole and gimmick, targeting and misconception/deception are really heavy in these so called “organic” fabrics.  I don’t care if it’s made from rose petals/rose waste, white pine, eucalyptus, bamboo, oranges or frickin fairy wings; it’s viscose/rayon, a fibre made from MANY different cellulose fibres (all plants are cellulose!), and the process is shockingly chemical laden, severely toxic and horrendously polluting. If i put a random pile of rayon fabrics in front of you, you would not be able to tell what was made from rose petals, or rotten rare spotted himalayan feather orchids…..I find it quite disgusting any company calling these sustainable, organic, vegan or eco-conscious, and just as disturbing that uninformed buyers clear this stuff out like it’s made from gossamer wings and moonbeams.  I made the decision a long time ago to not buy or use rayon, as it’s nasty stuff period. There’s no such thing as “good quality” rayon, and even if there were, it ain’t coming in my studio!  Don’t fall for makers that tell you these products are leaving no toxic footprint, educate them, but don’t don’t don’t buy.

Posted in mordants and modifiers, natural dye research, Natural Dyes, Studio Realities

this is why we scour and mordant

Posted on by arlee

UPDATED Oct 7/20

Oh, but it’s a pretty colour anyways.

Well, i can always overdye it.

But it was/looked clean when i bought it to dye.

It doesn’t matter, my clients like this colour.

But Famous Author *always* does this.

I don’t wash these anyways.

Did too scour: I washed this with my socks, before i dyed it.

Vinegar is too a mordant, you freak.

You’re just jealous i got dye from strawberries, ______, _______ and _____. (Insert appropriate inappropriate plant material here.) (This is usually said when said player has it explained to them, that even mordanting will not “fix” fugitive dyes.)

 

Here’s why you should scour, and pre mordant. Left to right: unwashed cotton, dye didn’t penetrate completely, many white spots visible, stiff as a f*****g board. Next, scoured only (soft as a baby’s butt!!!), no mordant, some colour uptake. Last, scoured and premordanted, deeper colour uptake. All were dyed in same pot of quebracho rojo, at the same time.

 

And please “but the colour is so pretty anyways” is not a good way to dye: the colours on the unscoured and unmordanted especially will/did wash out and will continue to do so, the scoured only will lose most of its colour with each subsequent wash, while the scoured and mordanted piece will keep its colour. And even “new” fibres that look clean need scouring.

Below cotton also, left scoured and mordanted, right scoured but no mordant.

 

 

 

A perfect example of what happens if you don’t scour properly, lesson learned in June last year:

I thought i had done enough on a new thread, but when i put them in tannin, this happened:

GREEN?????? I contacted Maiwa, my trusted supplier, and asked if perhaps it had been the soda ash in the initial scouring that had reacted (maybe not rinsed enough), as gallnut is a clear tannin, and stays to the “browner” tones after being used and stored. Nope.

Hi Arlee,

This is rare but it does happen, but it is not from the soda ash. Fabrics are often pretreated and contain substances which can leach out or react with the mordant. When used on it’s own Maiwa’s gallnut extract is usually a clear/colourless tannin. I would suggest trying other cotton fibres from different sources and comparing the results.

Best,
Danielle

I had to REALLY scour again, properly, to get the green out of the threads! And it’s not that these were second hand or cheap threads–they were brand new, brand name, tightly plastic packaged and tightly boxed for shipment. Subsequent threads scouring has given baths of brown, yellow and absurdly, PINK. SCOUR YOUR THREADS TOO! Don’t skimp on this step. Even “PFD” (prepared for dyeing) fabric in MY opinion should be scoured—a. it’s been “prepared” for synthetic dyes, and b. you don’t know how much it’s been dragged over warehouse floors, handled, packed or shipped. (MMM, someone had tacos for lunch and wiped their fingers on the silk. SHARESIES!)

After scouring, I mordant EVERYTHING, according to fibre type. I *know* substantive dyes like indigo and walnut don’t require mordanting, but given that i use a lot of dyes that do need it, i’d rather have everything pre-done in case i grab the wrong chunk. Pre mordanting will not hurt substantive dyes. Some may be stripped out by a chemical indigo vat, but you should mordant again after indigo if you are going to overdye with another natural dye.

EDIT: Oct 7/20 Here’s another object lesson from my Dye Dungeon. I bought brand new white cotton velveteen, and lazily scoured it only once, and for only 45 minutes. I hung it to dry, and in the morning, THIS was on the floor:

I don’t know what textile additive this was, but i suspect because of the oil like iridiscent sheen it was a solvent, or other petroleum based product, something that is definitely not coming out easily, and that would certainly inhibit the uptake of mordants and dyes. I had wondered why the fabric took up very little dye:

This “should” have been a deep rich colour, as it had been properly premordanted according to fibretype.

So i threw it back in a big pot, and as soon as it started boiling (above photo), i knew there was still a lot of crud in it. At the end of the first hour long boil up, it looked like i was using a walnut dyebath–it was that dark and disgusting! It took 2 more boils at 45 minutes each, each successive pot with 2 heaping tablespoons of Borax, 2 of soda ash and some neutral soap, to get the water clear. (J.Liles recommends some fabrics be boiled up to 4 hours!)

There must have been a hell of a lot of fibre additives, because the snow white fabric i initially started with is now a lovely CREAM. That’s okay though, still a good base colour, and significantly, the plushness is softer and thicker feeling, probably due to shrinkage. (Be aware that scouring can shrink things as well, and better to know *before* you make plans than after and have lost 2-15% length or width!) Note too, the cleaning aspect i used is for CELLULOSE only. Soda ash will destroy proteins, and i doubt Borax is good for them either.

While we all know (or should if you do a little research) is that textile manufacturing is loaded with chemicals, whether it’s naturals or synthetics. Not all are done in one dedicated plant that does “only” synthetics, “only” naturals, and i suspect few that are “ONLY” “organic”. (Fact in case, that cotton lace in the first photo, had some suspiciously plastic filaments stuck in it, meaning the factory had produced synthetic laces as well, either on the same machine before, or near by on another run.) Some of the chemicals are cleaners, some are part OF the fabric, some are added after to give weight, sheen, dyeability and effect, and a lot of them ARE in our natural fibres, whether you think them clean or not. LINK> This will tell you how many additives and processes are used, most of the time. I remember when i was a young teenager, some fabrics *smelled REALLY weird”—turns out it was formaldehyde! I have friends who still can’t go in fabric stores because of their health conditions and all these chemicals.

 

HOW to scour? Maiwa: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1086/6542/files/natural_dyeing.pdf?2077475857497476456 NOTE: different scour methods for cellulose vs protein fibres.  I use neutral soap and soda ash, or neutral soap and borax, or just neutral soap, depending on what i have handy, and depending on the fibre type.

HOW to mordant? Maiwa: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1086/6542/files/natural_dyeing.pdf?2077475857497476456 I sometimes add a tannin step to protein fibres, not because they need it, but because they will extend the colour possibilities.

Yes, they are the same link. Maiwa has the BEST, FREE information available that is accurate, researched and trustworthy. Save the link, print it, share it, USE it.