Beautiful Earthy Oranges Dyeing with Eucalyptus Leaves
Dyeing with Eucalyptus leaves can add versatility to your colour range. After achieving yellow with solar dyeing its time to add some heat.
Dyeing with Eucalyptus Leaves
In a previous post we looked at solar dyeing with Eucalyptus leaves. We achieved some great yellows that not only were washable but very resistant to the sun. In fact due to this sun resistance, it has become a natural dye that I use quite frequently.
Whenever I see bunches of leaves at the florist or supermarket for a reasonable price, I pick them up every time. I then use them to decorate the house for a few months as they dry out, before using them to dye with. There is normally a bunch of leaves on the go at all times. From my one small purchase, I get a lovely decoration, a beautiful smell through the house and some great dyeing material.
I have also used them a few times for some eco printing, where they leave a great vibrant orange/red on my material. So of course the next step was to get this same colour for my dyes. It was fairly obvious the difference needed to get orange rather than yellow was heat.
Fibre Preparation
Before dyeing you must first scour and mordant your fibre. For information on these processes, try this post.
What you will need to heat dye with eucalyptus leaves
Eucalyptus Leaves- for this experiment I used the dried leaves. I used a ratio of 250% to weight of fibre. So for my 20g of threads I used 50g of dried leaves.
Wool Thread- In this instance, I used 20g of 2 ply merino wool that had been scoured and mordanted with alum.
Saucepan
Heat Source
Water
Vinegar
Procedure
Step 1:Add your water and leaves to a large saucepan making sure you have plenty of water that will cope with several hours of boiling.
Step2: Add a large dash of vinegar to the dye pot.
Step3: Place on a medium to high heat and have on a gentle boil for several hours. You will see the water first turn yellow and then gradually turn orange over the time frame. You can turn off the heat whenever you are happy with the colour you have achieved. Keep checking the saucepan to check you don’t evaporate all of the water, and top up when needed.
Step 4: Leave your mixture to cool down. You can leave it over night to try and intensify the colour a little, or even leave it for a few days until you have time to dye your material.
Step 5: Sieve your dye and add your wet fibre.
Step 6:Heat your saucepan to around 80 degrees Celsius and leave at that heat for 40 to 60 minutes. Allow to cool and leave overnight
Step 7: You can also do an exhaust bath with the remains of your colour. After you take your material out, add another batch in and heat for another 40 min to 60min. Leave overnight.
Step 8: Rinse in water baths until they are clear. As I was using wool I did not want to use running water to start it felting, so I used a few bowls of water. Always make sure you wool does not experience dramatic temperature changes. Make your water room temperature. Leave to dry
Results when heat dyeing with eucalyptus leaves
As you can see I achieved some lovely vibrant colour. The paler threads are from the exhaust bath so as you can see, there was still colour left after the first bath.
I also left some of the thread out in the hot sun for 4 weeks and just like the solar dyeing results had no fading!
I hope this helps and encourages you to try your own experimenting in the world of natural dyes. 🙂
You can check out the experiment on solar dyeing with Eucalyptus here:
Join us on Instagram www.instagram.com/DyetoCraft
Etsy Shop Now open
If you like the idea of using organic naturally dyed threads in your craft but just don’t have the time, come and have a look at our Etsy Shop where you will find an array of beautiful colours provided by nature.
