Dyeing with Eucalyptus Leaves to give a brilliant yellow.

Solar Dyeing

In this experiment we will use 3 different mordants, and eucalyptus leaves, to give a variety of colour in our natural solar dyeing journey.

As with most experiments, I am going to use the process of solar dyeing.

This is basically putting your dyestuff in a glass jar and leaving it in the sun to work its magic. The beauty of living in Australia means that I do have the benefit of hot summers. If you don’t have these conditions, it does not mean you cannot try this process. You will just need to experiment with your own environments advantages and disadvantages. Leave it in a room that gets sunlight and may have great heating or try longer dyeing periods.

These experiments are only to show you what has and hasn’t worked for me, so you can pick through the information to start your own experimenting journey.

Fibre Preparation

Before dyeing you must first scour and mordant your fibre. For information on these processes, try this post.

Procedure

Step 1: Divide your leaves into 3 equal parts. Place each part into a separate bowl and cover with boiling water.

Step2: When cool enough transfer into your 3 glass jars and leave outside for a week.

Step 3: Sieve your dye and add your wet fibre, 1 piece of roving into each jar. Leave outside in the sun for 1 week. (It was summer in Australia, so was quite warm)

Step 4: Take your wool out of the jar and leave to dry completely without rinsing.

Step 5: Rinse in water baths until they are clear. As I was using roving 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 dyeing with eucalyptus leaves

As you can see the colour as come out a great variety of colour.

Across the page we have the roving after it was rinsed. Then comes the felt made from the roving. I figured that the wet felting procedure would be a good indication of how well the dye stands up to washing. Then comes the sun test. The felt was left on a window sill for 4 weeks in the hot Australian summer to see if it would fade.

As you can see, the dye stood up to washing and sun quite well. The copper mordanted wool came out of the dye bath a little duller than the alum, but it did not change at all with the sun test. The alum is a brighter yellow, although that did fade slightly over the 4 weeks. All up I was really quite happy with the results.

I hope this helps and encourages you to try your own experimenting in the world of natural dyes. 🙂

Update 22/8/2024

I have since done a lot more dyeing with eucalyptus leaves and thought I would show you some further experiments.

These pictures are of 2ply merino wool mordanted with alum water. I have then solar dyed the threads for 1 week.

The top picture shows the threads straight after rinsing and drying as well as after 1 week in full sun. The 2nd circle does look a little odd as the threads are covered with masking tape to hold them in my journal. Sorry. The colours however are identical before and after the sun test.

The second picture is after the embroidered thread has been washed and dried. I have gently hand washed with a gentle soap and was very happy to see no running of dye at all!!