Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Natural dyeing

I've been having a wonderful 2 days at a natural dyeing workshop! We started yesterday with leaves and wildflowers which we rolled into crepe de chine, silk, cotton and wool and then put into a steaming bath with alum.
There's actually a bit more color than the picture shows in the natural T-shirt. I may slit the front and add some hand stitching to it eventually.

The dark you see on the T-shirt above was a rusty spike.
Today, we did some indigo dyeing and I over dyed a silk scarf from yesterday in a cochineal bath. The scarf is on the left and my T-shirt is the blue one on the left.
The pink shirt above right is also mine.

One lady brought a lot of her clothes to dye. They look so beautiful fluttering in the pines.

These are the pots simmering with madder. The front one is just water with natural plant materials.

Once everything is washed and dry I'll have some final photos.

6 comments:

~Carla~ said...

That's soo neat! Bet it's fun to see how they turn out!! :)

Margaret said...

What fun! This is the season to be outside with that sort of thing too, eh?

Jennifer Scantlebury Vienneau said...

Looks like a lot of fun! I did some natural dyeing when I was a weaving student at the Holland College School of Visual Arts. My best results were with onion skins.

Kate said...

It looks like you are having lots of fun, and getting to enjoy the outdoors, at the same time!

imquilternity said...

The color is beautiful. I love the soft ethereal quality of it. You must be having a lot of fun... wish I was there to see it all in person!

Regina said...

That looks so interesting!