Natural Dyeing again

More playing in the kitchen, mordant free!

Some lovely pale indigo/grey tones with black beans - I used a lot more this time!

Avocado pits next. I played about with re-wetting, drying and folding the freshly dyed fabrics,  and got some nice textural marks.

I was really pleased with the colours this time, again, I used more stones, and waited overnight before using the dye bath. Apparently the avocado produces its own mordant?

This doily had been tea dyed lightly before, which wasn't doing anything for it, but overdyeing with the avocados produced a gorgeous tone. 

Now to use the fabric!

More natural dyeing/tinting

Flushed with success, I continue my kitchen dyeing experiments. All my original fabrics were pretty much white - so if you compare them with the page background it's a good indication of the tone.  This time I didn't mordant the fabric.  As I couldn't wait (typical) I followed Alex's tips and tried using avocado skins and stones (I had to  rescue some from the compost caddy!) She got some gorgeous shades here. Note to self - get more avocados! I got a very pale copper-pink colour on the old tea tray cloth and cotton . On the silk though it's much more gold brown -  interesting......

Had a bit of an upset with the black beans. Janice got a really, really lovely shade with these here.  I dipped the fabrics, but following the car accident I left them damp and squished up  over night.

You can see more clearly on the silk below I got these brown marbled bits where the fabric was squashed together - but  dry they look  much more subtle. I like it! The linen produced a  grey rather than blue, not so keen on that. Next time I'll user more beans to achieve a darker blue -and might try the soy milk mordant.

Finally, I went rusty! I folded and tied some sheeting around an old rasp  and left it out in the rain for a few days, which produced some interesting marks. I'll try this again.The crocheted lace - (a charity shop find) is just dyed with coffee.

Here's a little Floweri- pop doodle on some of the black bean dyed cotton, which was an old  pillow case - gorgeous for stitching on! x

In a Blue Mood

Last week didn't end well. Our car was hit by an out of control vehicle on the motorway. We're ok now, but it was a horrible shock and we are still going through all the hassle with insurance etc,  and hoping the car isn't written off. Amazingly, no one was seriously injured for which I am devoutly thankful.

As you can imagine, this has put me out of sorts for a few days, and not much work has been done. I did have a lovely  relaxing afternoon sketching with the Urban Sketchers Bristol/South West  (if you're on Face Book, apologies to  those who aren't) on Saturday, when the sun shone,  but did more chatting than sketching. I haven't been able to settle  to complete my workshop sample, but I have started thread doodling again.

Although I don't consider myself a 'blue' person, this slate blue hue calls to me and its now one of my favourite colours.

Originally, I  drew the flower as a motif on some tea dyed calico, but felt I needed to go on with the process after stitching it.
I used just plain stranded cotton in different shades of this grey blue colour.

 

I didn't use beads or objects to accentuate the stitching, but just described the texture by using different stitches.

  

It did give me a lot of opportunity for knots too :) 

Thanks to everyone for the dyeing tips and info, which has been so helpful.  I plan to tint more fabric as soon as I don't feel quite so tired and achy, and when it finally stops raining!  

Natural dyeing ( or tinting!)

A few weeks ago, when we finally had a warm sunny day, I decided to  some of my annual natural dyeing. I should probably say tinting,  as I'm not really looking for a strong colour. Due to lack of space and difficulty drying things,  I  keep it really simple, and  everything is food grade!  I have plenty of options for yellow and brown shades and want to increase my palette.

These cottons are dyed with blackberries from my freezer. The bottom one has a mordant of white vinegar.  I love this colour! The middle one has no mordant and is more crushed strawberry. The top one is blackberry and turmeric which is a pretty gold/pale lilac. The colour's more obvious than the photo in real life.

I wanted to find a  natural green, and I'd heard good reports of rosemary - of which I have lots!   So  after much snipping,extracting leaves, and a salt mordant, here is a piece of old linen found in a charity shop, cotton and silk. These are a  lovely pale yellow green.

 

  A very subtle rainbow, but the gentle  effect I was after - hooray!

I want to find a blue I like now and I've seen a lovely effect using black beans with a soy milk mordant? Anyone tried that, or have any tips or combinations which have worked well?