Eucalyptus globulus, a native to Australia, is fairly common on the Northern California coast.
The fresh eucalyptus leaves were cut up, boiled and left to sit overnight, and then an alum mordanted silk scarf and a tannin and alum mordanted cotton scarf were simmered for 3 hours in the dye bath. They were left to cool in the dye and then rinsed. The dye yielded a nice warm tan on the silk scarf, but the color of the cotton did not change, probably because the tannin mordant had already darkened it.
Silk scarf drying in the spring breeze.
I then added an Iron modifyer, in the form of a ferrous sulphate solution, to the dye bath. I dumped it in, and the dye bath turned dark blue immediately. I would like to add the iron modifier more slowly next time, but it's all a learning process.
I wrapped up both scarves for tie-dyeing with rubber bands and immersed them in the now dark blue dye.
I let them simmer in the hot dye bath for 10 minutes. The effect was dramatic.
Eucalyptus dye bath after adding Iron modifyer.
The Cotton scarf on the left, and the tie-dyed silk scarf on the right. I am rather pleased with how the silk came out. Cotton is a lot trickier, and I am not so stoked on the colors there.
supposedly, different varieties of Eucalyptus (and there are hundreds) dye various colors. These next two wool skeins are from my son's tree, possible Eucalyptus rostrata or Red Gum Eucalyptus
The Copper Brown colored skein was dyed from the bark and stems and the yellow is from the leaves of the same tree.
