Cotton Tales

Bundled cotton culottes with red and yellow onions skins, E. cinerea, and hibiscus; boiled in iron pot; don’t know how long to leave it..it’s very dark blue right now, as it dried, it lost much of it's color; I think subtle and earthy are the words for the tones now.

Cotton t-shirts and culottes, after dyeing

Cotton culottes...soaked in alum, tannin, alum and then soy.  I guess I wanted to take no chances, although it's all experiment and chance.

Bundled with eucalyptus and boiled in iron pot

T-shirt soaked in soy, bundled with eucalyptus and steamed

T-Shirt, soy mordanted and cured, bundled with eucalyptus, steamed and then lower half boiled in iron pot

This weeks cotton t-shirts, bundled, steamed, boiled half-way in iron pot, waiting to see when they dry out.  Some of the eucalyptus leaves are fresh and some dry.  Also some hibsicus and onion skins.  

Many of the euca leaves were painted with egg yolk and left to dry before bundling, painted with fresh egg yolk just before bundling.  So many options to experiment with

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Long maxi dress...eucalyptus on cotton with some iron mordant

2 soy mordanted, iron dipped, cotton tee shirts with eucalyptus, simmered in cochineal dye bat

 Upcycled girls camisole 

Ornamental Pistachio Fling: A Fall Adventure

Pistacia chinensis, or Ornamental Pistachio...green foliage during the year turns a showy red in autumn.  My neighbor, Sooz, put some from her tree in a plastic tub and microwaved it a few times; the water turned pink, so she gave me the rest of her fall leaves plus a bagful from some friends in the Sierras where the trees line Hwy 50.  Oh, joy, plenty for experiments.

Fall pistachio leaves, nicely red and delicate.

Pistachio leaf prints, bottom left, on watercolor paper.

 Dye bath is definitely red.

Skein of yarn dyed with pistachio leaf dye.

The pistachio leaf dye bath and two skeins of dyed wool.  The first skein is tanner.  I added some vinegar to the second dye bath with unmordanted wool in the aluminum pot.  It was pinker.  I would try it again with vinegar the first time.

Eucalyptus and Pistachio leaves bundled for dyeing.

Steamed for 2 hours. 

Silk scarf with pistachio leaves and eucalyptus leaves.

Some nice eucalyptus prints along with the pistachio prints.

My new best friend: Scissors which deckle the edges of the watercolor paper.  I was using the fold, dampen, tear method before, but this is much, much easier.

Paper Eco Prints and Repurposing old T-Shirt

I had a nice unwrapping this AM.  Some steamed paper samples with lots of different leaves: Eucalyptus, various, Hopi Red Dye plant, Maple, Cherry leaves, both green and yellow, Madrone bark found along the gravel road, Purple Petunia flowers, and a brightly colored blackberry leaf

Vintage Cotton panel, leaf printed, to cover up graphics of old t-shirt

 T-Shirt back

Some very nice Eucalyptus cinerea prints, along with various Euca leaves and other fall foliage

 T-Shirt front, almost too much of a riot of shapes

Madrone bark makes very very wonderful marks, upper left patch

Petunias, what great flowers for this, and Cherry Leaves

 Eucalyptus and Cherry

Cherry and

with Maple and Eucalyptus and Cherry

Eco Printing on Paper

This is my second attempt at making eco prints on watercolor paper (300 lb.)  On my first attempt, I made a classic beginner's error....I didn't pre-fit the materials to the steamer, and consequently, the papers, in their wrappings, would not fit flat into the steamer.  I got some prints, but the results were predictably uneven.

I used Eucalyptus leaves, both E. cinerea and E. globulus, Blackberry leaf, Rose leaf, Cherry leaf, Maple, and a few Cotinus.  All the papers and leaves were spritzed with an iron solution before steaming.  The steaming lasted a couple of hours.

I am drying the prints for awhile on an outdoor window in the hopes they will stay flat.

Eucalyptus and Cherry, open spacing

Two kinds of Eucalyptus, mirror images

I got carried away here with, perhaps, too many maple leaves.  Such bounty right now.

 Blackberry and Cherry Leaves

This is a fun and inexpensive way to test leaves...all the leaves I used, with the exception of the fava leaves left more or less distinct prints.  I want to experiment with the use of mordants...alum and spritzes of vinegar, iron, and copper to see what effect on the color.

Bundling and Cooking Options for Eco Prints

There are many options for cooking one's bundles; the final results are related to the method of cooking chosen.  I have three exhibits below, but I have also experimented with solar dyeing and cooking bundles in a crock pot (seemed to leave too much water, but I may try again.)

My first try at pressure cooking yesterday.  I went into the back shed and excavated my old pressure cooker.  I had my doubts about whether it had survived, but after smashing down the little pressure valve, it chugged right along for an hour.

I will open these in a couple of weeks.  When I peeked in the cooker, I could see that the whole scarf had turned color.  The lace wrapped silk scarf is a redye and is bundled with Euca polyanthemos and Hibiscus flowers...trying to keep it simple.

The second silk scarf was simply premordanted in alum and wrapped in Euca polyanthemos and Hibiscus.  That's a sea sponge dipped in alkanet powder piggybacking on the outside of the bundle.  Experiment on.

Pressure Cooked 1 Hour

I had an alkanet bath which had dyed several skeins of yarn a luscious berry purple.  I boiled these 2 scarves in the leftovers.  One scarf is bundled with soaked fall maple leaves and ornamental purple plum leaves, all wrapped on a peeled cherry stem.

The 2nd scarf is wrapped with "ghost" eucalyptus leaves (they don't transfer much color, just a shape in dark  neutral tones) and Euca cinerea.

Boiled 1 Hour in Alkanet Dye Bath

Steaming is best when you want some background to remain white, for delicate flowers and leaves.  The top scarf was wrapped with blackberry, flowers, and leaves.  The dark blackberry stain is obvious on the left.

Much of the white background is left on the 2nd scarf, and the leaves and flowers are showing through.  I will be leaving these a week or two more.

Steamed 1 Hour

On Beyond Brown: Blackberries, Eucalyptus polyanthemos, Cherry leaves, and Iron

Bundled on a copper pipe and steamed for an hour: blackberries, E. polyanthemos leaves, Cherry leaves and cotton string which had been soaked in an Iron solution.  Vinegar spritz.

Yellow color is probably from the eucalyptus leaves

Blue-green at bottom is from the copper pipe

Abstract markings from the iron-soaked string

Madder Week

Dyeing with Madder Root all week.  Soaked the roots for a week or so, then did a solor dyeing which yielded a salmon colored skein (not pictured).  Then ground the soaked roots in the blender and did a dye bath, simmering soaked wool yarn for 1 hour.  I put the blended root in a bag, but I really should have sieved it first, as little bits of dyestuff remain in the wool.  I did 2 more dye baths on the next two days which yielded different shades...the brick red becoming more burnt orange.  In my readings this AM, I learned that leaving out the Cream of Tartar from the mordant bath would yield stronger reds and including it throws the range more to the orange.

The silk tie was bundled with eucalyptus, cherry leaf, yarrow sprays and iron nails, simmered 1 hour, left overnight and opened.

The cherry bark was soaked for about 3 weeks and simmered an hour, left to cool, then the soaked yarn was added the next day and simmer 1 hour...forgotten for a day or two before removing.  I like the color, quite golden and looks lovely with the madder skeins.

Eucalyptus Cinerea Experiment

I was following a discussion about eco printing with Euclyptus leaves and decided to try a little experiment.  I used 3 scarves mordanted with alum and wrapped them with fallen Eucalyptus cinerea leaves and a few other ones...rose and red amaranth, all bundled around a bamboo stalk.

I boiled one bundle in a stainless pot, boiled the second in an iron pot, and steamed the third in an aluminum steamer.  I cooked the bundles for an hour, let them cool in their pots, and then waited a week, keeping them moist.

The 2 boiled bundled took on a deep red (from the amaranth) which eventually washed out.  The rose leaves were most visible on the steamed bundle.  There doesn't seem to be much difference between the two boiled bundles.  I am still looking for some of the blues others seem to get with the iron.

Scarf boiled for an hour in stainless pot

Scarf boiled for an hour in iron pot

Scarf steamed for an hour in aluminum steamer

Various Eco Print Dye Experiments

Silk scarf with hibiscus print

Silk scarf with avocado, eucalyptus, iron nails and bamboo

Silk scarf with Iron nails bamboo and red onion skins

Silk tie with Iron nails, Eucalyptus and Golden bamboo eco prints

Upcycled recycled repurposed Girls t shirt from thrift shop with eucalyptus and red and yellow onion skin eco prints

Silk Men's Necktie with Silver Dollar eucalyptus, other eucalyptus and golden bamboo eco prints

My messy worktable with Ice dye cold bundle flowers, butterfly bush, Crocosmia "Lucifer", and Rose Campion, on silk scarf, pre-dyed with red cabbage....to go into freezer and hopefully turn out spectacular.  also a few leaves from the butterfly bush and one cherry leaf

A few scarves and skeins of yarn hanging from my wisteria tree