Getting Rusty

This cloth was rolled with gladiolus and turmeric, then steamed.

 

I'm not sure what this was wrapped with ... maybe lilacs and lilac leaves. This is how it looked after steaming.

 

believe necklace

This is how it looks after soaking overnight in rusty water with a bit of vinegar added. It changed from a rather glorious yellow to a slightly more mellow color. Also, the rusty water coaxed some patterns to the surface of the cloth.

This is how it looks after soaking overnight in the rusty water with a bit of vinegar. You can see that the soaking brought out blue from the white background. The coaxing of the blue also turned the yellow to green. I like it! 

 

 

"BELIEVE" - A wee nod to my jewelry making, lest it gets lost in all the folds and wrinkles of my textiles. 

Eco Dye Progress

Here are the results from the eco dye experiment of a a couple of weeks ago.

I was worried about the green string, but it actually adds a lot of interest. Too bad it's probably not eco-friendly dye. 

Now, just to see what would happen, I've put them all into the rusty old iron pot. The liquid is rain water and some white vinegar. I probably should have torn each piece in half, so I could compare before and after. I'm sure I'll get better at this. For now, I just want to have some fun. I don't want to get bogged down in record keeping yet. Once I start to have more of a feel for it all, then I'll start keeping meaningful notes. 

 

Today I finally realized it really is summer. But I don't fully trust it yet. If I wake up tomorrow and it's so cold I want to turn on the heat, I won't be surprised.

 
 

Eco-Dye

 
 

I was visiting Jude Hill's blog recently and I saw she had experimented with azalea blossoms in her dye pot. She posted a beautiful image of a pale pink piece of cotton and I fell in love with it. Lucky me, my azalea bush was in full bloom, so I immediately went outside and picked a bunch of blossoms and decided to spend some time experimenting.

When I went searching for cloth to use, I came across bundles of flowers I had wrapped in newsprint and put away at some point in the past. I decided to give them a whirl along with the azalea blossoms. I really have very little idea of what I am doing. It seems every year or so, I try some natural dye experimentation for all of a week or so, and then I drop it until another year passes! Maybe this time I'll stick with it for a while - I'm feeling optimistic. 

I think my introduction to eco-dye was via India Flint's marvelous book, Eco Colour: botanical dyes for beautiful textiles. What a wonderful book!  That book was followed by Second Skin, another book I'm pleased to have on my shelf. The book I am using while I attempt my latest foray into the World of Dye, is a sweet little book by India, titled the bundle book.

I made quite a few cotton bundles with a variety of ingredients, even adding nuts and dried fruits to one of the bundles. The most gorgeous combination was when I dusted the purple glads with turmeric. It may not work well as a dye, but it sure does look spectacular in the "before" photo!

DRIED GLADIOLUS BLOSSOMS, DUSTED WITH TURMERIC.

I spent quite a bit of time making various bundles and I'm hoping my jotted notes will be sufficient to remind me of what I've done. All I have to do now is be patient and try not to unbundle them too soon. It does occur to me, rather belatedly, that green (dyed?) string might not have been a wise choice. We'll see.

GOOD THINGS COME TO SHE WHO WAITS.  AT LEAST I HOPE SO.