First Eco-Bundling Batch of 2013

Today I cleaned the outdoor papermaking/natural dye work area. I then cut fabric, got the hot plates and pots out, cut some flowers and wrapped some bundles. For most of what I gathered, I am trying four different variables. I want to compare the effects of the same flower on alum mordanted, copper mordanted and unmordanted cotton. I also want to see if steaming a non mordanted bundle in the presence of copper (a colander in this case) will have any effect.

 

While the bundles were steaming, I applied a first layer of latex varnish to some mold and deckle frames my husband made. I want to teach papermaking workshops, and need them in order to do that.

I left the bundles to sit in the pots to cool and set overnight. I will open them tomorrow morning and see if any magic happened! Stay tuned...

Marigold Dye

Today I dyed cotton fabric with marigold (Tagetes patula varieties). 

 I used flower heads that I gathered and froze last summer and fall as well as a few fresh flowers gathered today. I also made a dye bath with the frozen leaves and stems.

I simmered both for a half hour, let it sit for an hour, then added the fabric.

In the marigold flowers bath are copper-mordanted cotton on the left and alum-mordanted cotton on the right. A better look at the different results from the mordants:

 

with copper mordant

with alum mordant

The marigold leaves yielded a soft green which is difficult to see in this photo. This is on copper-mordanted fabric. I neglected to take a photo of the alum-mordanted.

These are the color results after immediately immersing the fabric in the dye baths. I left them to soak in the baths for a few days to hopefully produce a more saturated color.

Eco Bundling - OMG!

Now that I have completed the work for Inspirations, my first art showing at The Silo Gallery, I have moved on to other projects. Namely papermaking and continuing to experiment with natural dyes and dyeing.

On Sunday afternoon, I mordanted two of the four batches of cotton fabric (old bed sheets) which I treated with tannin back in March (see post here), one batch with alum and the other with copper. I let the batches sit in the mordants until yesterday when I wrung them out, rinsed the copper and half the alum- treated pieces and hung all to dry.

I cut up some of the rinsed, alum treated cotton to experiment with.  I am testing "cold water dyeing" with walnut hulls and oak bark, so a piece of fabric went into a small dye bath of each. Will let those sit for a few days to absorb the most color.

I have been wanting to try "eco-bundles", which India Flint describes in her book on natural dyeing, Eco-Colour.  Now that the fabric was ready, I was able to do so.  I rolled fresh flower petals from Othello roses, pink Pelargoniums, Tithonias, petunias, cosmos, rudbeckias, salvia and catmint. Leaves of woad, orange mint, lemon balm, broadleaf plantain, Lysimachia, sage, beet stems and leaves were also rolled and all were bundled with rubber bands.

These were then steamed for one hour and left to cool overnight.





 India suggests leaving the bundles for a week to let the colors fully develop, but I could not resist taking a peak of each today! And OH MY GOSH how gorgeous that peak is!! I unrolled a few. Here are some photos. We'll see if I can wait a week to unroll the rest!

Othello rose petals

top layer: rudbeckias, cosmos, salvia, catmint (see above)

bottom layer: rudbeckias, cosmos, salvia, catmint

Pelargonium petals

beet stems and leaves

tithonia flowers

As a papermaker and printmaker, you know I will be experimenting with achieving these results on paper!