26th June 2018
If you’ve been following me on Instagram you’ll know I’ve spent a lot of time with my hands in the dye vats in recent weeks. I’ve been using plant-derived dyes to dye organic fabric samples, trying to achieve the colours I want for my MA Degree Show collection. Building work at my uni means I don’t have access to the dye vats over summer, so it’s been a bit of a race to get it all done. I’m such a newbie to natural dyeing so every batch has filled me with excitement, awe and delight!
Here’s a round-up of my Adventures Part 1 (pinks, purples and yellows).
It began when I explored The Organic Textile Company’s website. Such a wide choice of organic, ethically produced, Fair Trade fabrics! I chose white, but there are lots of colours to choose from. They have a lovely website and a quirky Instagram and are very helpful with FAST delivery. And no, they are not paying me to say this!
I’ve read several books in preparation but this is the one I’ve found most useful.
Dye vats at the ready...
…first off was mordanting the fabrics. Because I’m using 100% cotton fabrics I used a mordant of alum and washing soda. From what I’ve read, this seems to be the most innocuous in terms of toxicity.
Originally I wanted to extract all the colours I needed from plants that I had grown myself or had foraged but I soon realised this doesn’t sit well in my timescale. Consequently, I bought logwood and madder extracts from dyeing-crafts.co.uk. Again, I’m not paid to advertise them, but I do recommend them for a good website and speedy service.
The logwood gave me some beautiful shades of purple, from almost black aubergine to lavender. This is ‘Cambridge' cotton which is a robust canvas with a lovely texture.
Next came the madder which gave me various shades of rose and salmon pinks. I was expecting red! I’m going to try modifying with an iron modifier. I’ll let you know how it goes!
In the meantime, the pinks are very beautiful!
I’ve used marigolds which I’ve grown myself for past experiment to gain yellows, but it was a bit early in the season so I used turmeric. WOW!
The first samples gave a lovely daffodil yellow, the second a zesty orange and mixed with madder gave up further shades of vibrant oranges. Wow, bring on the sunshine!
A lot of my photos appear fuzzy but it’s due to the steam from the vats rather than camera shake. That’s my excuse.
I can see how dyeing with natural dyes can become addictive. It’s SO exciting! The outcome can never be predicted with total accuracy and that’s what I like about it. There have been lots of whoops as I’ve fished bits of fabric from the vats whilst sampling. Especially when seeking greens. But more of that in Part 2.
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