Category: Plant Dyeing

Paper prints

PiaChit Chat

Dry flowers apparently aren’t my thing, they look very dull and broken, some leaves might be useful. I don’t know if I went overboard squishing them real hard with clamps on the books?

I do still plan to try some garden printing, when time allows. There must be stuff out there that I can use even late in the season! Maybe I can do it on pieces of cloth that I plan to plant dye, if I use acrylics, they shouldn’t wash off no matter what I put the material through afterwards, at least that’s the deal when I get it on my clothes…. (does anyone paint and manage to look pretty throughout?) I wish I had some more fluid paints than the ones I have, guess I’ll have to invest in Golden acrylics next time.

In the meantime I saw those posts on plant dyeing on paper, which I just had to give a go although late in the season. Next summer and flowers and new dyebed (which hubby at the moment has decided to till for me as a first prep! Yay him!)

First session went quite well although I had no idea how to “steam” the paper, nor how to best keep the sandwiches tight and not floating apart. So I’ll be getting some alder leaves and some coreopsis from the freezer, and hey! How about all those dry homegrown weld and Dyer’s chamomile I collected!? Any Woad leaves left out there I wonder?

Time to get a bit scientific about it. Two pair of sheets soaked in vinegar, two in aluminium acetate. Alder leaves, more yellow birch leaves and Liquidambar styraciflua. Another sandwich, same mordants, strawberry leaves green and yellow, sage, celandine. In between the 2 sets, a layer of frozen coreopsis tinctoria and blue columbine flowers.

Then there’s the consideration of temps. Will a too high temp give dull prints? How low can you go and still get steam? I started with 150 C because 100 didn’t seem to get steamy. 120 doesn’t seem to quite work either, no visible steam anyway.

I’m showing both front and back of some sheets, since they could be used either way.

Unfortunately at some point in the drying process, I lost track of which 4 sheets were aluminium soaked instead of vinegar, AND forgot in which way they were different. I could identify them by which first sheet has the grate imprint from the oven, but after a 3 day break I also forgot which batch was on the bottom. DUH. Scatterbrain.

I’m happy enough with these results that I’m going to keep playing with paper and plants. Test which seasons give the best results and see if I can find any info on it. Some also say use “dead” leaves collected from the ground, some even use older leaves and soak them first. Hmmmm – I wonder about the above pressed flowers and stuff now?!

A short search gave me:

Cassandra Tondro on eco printing with a recipe (backwards) for paper steaming

The natural surface – great forum

Dip and stain

Threadborne list of plants to use

Next challenge: If I order a new batch of water colour paper, can I resist getting pens and inks and other lovely supplies while I’m at it?! Now that I’m getting a micro painting studio and all….

Fall forage

PiaPlant Dyeing

Just a bit of gathering while walking the dog, to keep me occupied during winter in case I get urges.

In addition to the chestnut hulls I brought home, I also gathered spruce cones from the forest.

AND I found one young alder tree on our property that had produced cones, so I got myself a bag of those too.

I then tried to strip the larch trees, but they were not quite ready to let go of their needles, and those which did mostly ended up on my sweater. Tricky! I’ll get back to them in a week or so.

Then I went foraging websites and ended up ordering this canning device with a thermostat, I’m guessing it’s real good for keeping madder root at it’s proper temp as well! Since the jars will be shut I’m wondering if I could use it for apple sauce too. Not sure if I’ve had actual mordants or acid dye in there, what do y’all think?

Cloths part 3

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

Time for the last set of plant print experiments! I wasn’t really inspired to attempt any nice photography, so I just popped them in the flatbed scanner for you.

Sheet from last batch as well as the “mystery fabric that doesn’t take any colour” (I think we’ll just call it Homer from now on) had a bath in aluminium acetate then some powdered madder root and a handful of dried hollyhock heads, and the sheet, previously dyed brown from longterm exposure to celandine, had a short bath in – well, celandine. Not a lot of improvement, so I wrapped it up with some fern leaves. Nothing much happened for weeks, so I steamed it. And if you squint you might just be able to see a weak fern pattern…. Mostly, what I got was a bunch of brown, mouldy fabrics smelling like a cow’s a*se.

The raspberry leaves did print nicely – from the top side of the leaves only, the fabric covering the back of the leaves have 0 change. And, well, the lupine leaves? yawn…..

I actually think I’m giving up on this. Rose leaves gave me nothing. Alchemilla mollis, nothing.

I may however, decide to try with paper, after reading this blog. Tell me it isn’t cool!

http://wendyfe.wordpress.com/tag/eco-prints-on-paper/

Of course, I’m rapidly running out of leaves, so this will be for another year. Tomorrow I’ll go check if any more of these are still up (and no, I can’t imagine they’ll actually print red)

Liquidambar styraciflua

≈ Leave a Comment

Plantefarvning på stof

Tid til flere eksperimenter inden sæsonen er slut! Lupinblade og bregner rullet ind i bomuld. Forsøgte mig ogsÃ¥ med rosenblade – ingenting skete. Faktisk skete der absolut ingenting med nogen af mine forsøg ved at blot lade stoffet ligge med planter i og holde det fugtigt, sÃ¥ jeg prøvede at dampe/koge et par stykker. Hindbærblade virkede ligesÃ¥ godt som egeblade, men kun fra forsiden. Tørrede stokrosehoveder var derimod forbavsende gode, glæder mig til at farve garn med dem.

Og der sker lige nøjagtig ikke ret meget, ud over at det begynder at stinke efter en måneds tid, så nu tror jeg ærlig talt ikke jeg gider prøve igen lige foreløbig, slet ikke på bomuld i hvert fald.

Elderberry results 2

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

Washed and dried and staying pretty much the same colour! So far so good… All that remains is a light test.

salt – alkaline – acid – before wash
In the sun after wash in tap water with shampoo

The jar of fleece turned blue, then green after some days, but the fleece then virtually lost all colour when drained. Slight greenish grey left. Whether it’s due to temp, no mordant or just the Dorset that doesn’t take well remains a mystery as usual. But I’m thinking I could have gotten green if I’d used yarn.

≈ Leave a Comment

Hyldebærfarvning 2

Det ser ud som om garnet holder farven, ogsÃ¥ efter vask! SÃ¥ mangler blot en lystest….

Elderberry results 1

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

I nearly forgot about these – time to take a look after 10 days. Looks pretty good! Now to dry and cure for about a week, then rinse in rain water.

I then mixed the leftover juice and added some of the unmordanted Dorset fleece, tweaking to a pH of 8. Leaving for a week or more and take it out when I rinse the others for a new report. The suspense is killing me, how about you? Right now it looks blue….

salt – alkaline – acid

Tempted to try a tin mordant if these turn out colourfast. And I’ve read about green. I wonder which pH is needed for that? Like, 13? My strips only go to 11.

It’s been cool weather, not above 20 C, more like 15, so not exactly what I’d call solar dyeing.

≈ Leave a Comment

Hyldebærfarvning

Jeg havde næsten glemt mine garnglas på bryggershylden, men nu var det tid til at åbne efter 10 dage. Jeg lader dem tørre noget tid inden jeg skyller, for at lade farven sidde i så længe som muligt. Jeg har læst et sted at bærfarver holder bedre hvis de er koldfarvet i forhold til simret, så det måtte jeg alligevel prøve, selvom jeg egentlig har opgivet frugt og grønt.

Den resterende saft har jeg blandet og puttet i et nyt glas med ubejset dorset uld. Fortsættelse følger!