2011 Papers

A sampling of the papers I made this summer

Some of the papers you see here are (bottom to top):
14x17 - kozo dyed with forest green Procion dye, Philippine gampi, sage dyed under-beaten cotton, flax, goldenrod dyed cotton
8.5x11 left -  pure cotton rag, cabbage dyed cotton, carrot top dyed cotton, bamboo sheaths, turmeric dyed cotton and abaca
5x7 left recycled paper
8.5x11 right- gampi dyed with colored tissue during pressing of sheets, gampi, purple-leaf plum bark dyed gampi, abaca dyed with dandelion leaves and flowers; sage dyed cotton, goldenrod dyed cotton, carrot top with copper modifier dyed cotton, flax

Garden Sage Dyed Cotton Pulp

I read in the book Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles by India Flint that the leaves of garden sage make a red dye. This intrigued me and since I have several very robust Salvia officinalis plants, I decided to try it. I believe this must be a misprint. It is more than likely that the purple flowers will yield a red dye. I will try that next June. In the meantime I am very pleased with the sage green I got from these leaves.

leaves before cooking dyed pulp before & after rinsing

the dried, finished sheets

I simmered some of the used dye bath until it was reduced to half. The color is very dark. I believe this will make a wonderful ink.

Cotton Rag Pulp Dyed with Red Cabbage Part 2

L to R: dye before adding mordanted fiber, after; half of each

After seeing some photos of different types of fabrics dyed with red cabbage leaves, I was smitten! The varying shades of purples, lavenders and violets had me hooked! Unfortunately for me, I was working with cotton pulp, not silk or wool fabric.*

I planted three red cabbages in the spring having read that they are good dye plants. I harvested them from the garden on Monday, removed the outer greenish blue leaves, then cut up both the head and outer leaves. I cooked them in separate batches hoping to get two different colors from the same plants. The outer leaves did not yield any color, even after simmering for an hour and a half. The purple heads did release their color in just 20 minutes.

I pre-mordanted the cotton pulp the same as I have been, as recommended for cotton cloth in Wild Color by Jenny Dean. The author suggests using alum and washing soda (as a neutralizer to the acidic alum) to mordant the cotton before dyeing.
I added the cotton to the strained dye bath, brought to a simmer and simmered for 20 minutes. The color of the dye bath seemed to change before my eyes! it went from lavender to a greyish blue to bright cotton candy blue!

I divided the pulp in half and added a small amount of white vinegar to one batch. This turned a magenta color.

On Tuesday I performed the very smelly job of rinsing these pulps. I was sad to see the color being washed out as I did so. I wonder if I had let the pulp sit in the dyebath overnight, rather than draining it right away, would the color have been darker?

blue pulp in vat

Today I made paper from the two batches of pulp. It is difficult to tell the difference between the two because the color is so light!

The finished sheets. Top - pure white cotton, center - red cabbage dye and acid modifier, bottom - red cabbage dyed cotton paper





*Rereading the recipe for red cabbage dye in The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes by Sasha Duerr, I realized that those luscious fabrics were first treated with a tannin and then they were mordanted with alum! I will attempt this recipe again next year. I will pretreat cotton fabric, dye it, wash and dry it then cut it up and beat it into a pulp.

Cotton Rag Pulp Dyed with Red Cabbage Part 1

(Mobile Upload) This is cool! The dye bath color changed from magenta to blue because of the alkaline mordant.

The Finished Papers

L to R: pure cotton; carrot-top dyed; carrot-top dyed with copper modifier; goldenrod dyed

Carrot Tops and Goldenrod

Tools

August 24, 2011 - After spending a few days beating cut up cotton sheets in my Mark Lander Beater, I began the process of dyeing this pulp with plant materials easily accessible to me. The carrot tops I got from carrots I bought at the farmers' market and the goldenrod is growing wild in my backyard.

L to R: cotton pulp after mordanting; carrot tops dye bath; unrinsed cotton pulp

dyed with carrot tops, rinsed pulp with lots of the color removed.

L to R: goldenrod before & after simmering; dye bath

Cotton Pulp for Paper

Today I began cutting up white cotton sheets and beating them in my Critter. I plan to cut up five sheets in all which is seven and a half pounds of dry fiber. After beating this into a pulp, I will experiment with dyeing them naturally. I plan to try goldenrod, culinary sage, carrot tops, tansy, the nuts of Pignut Hickory (a relative of the black walnut), marigolds and whatever else presents itself.