In this post I am actually going to be dyeing with an extract that was bought from a natural dye supplier rather than from something in my immediate environment. There are a few colours which unfortunately are a little hard to get from my local area so it was time to start looking at bought…
My mother has a water gum tree sitting in the middle of her front garden. It bursts into yellow bloom every year and looks lovely in front of her window. She trims it quite regularly to give shape and form and I just couldn’t see all of those lovely leaves go to waste. Although a…
Slow Stitching One of the ways I enjoy using my naturally dyed fibres is slow stitching. It is a relaxing way to just play and see what happens. The main rule and guideline I give myself when sitting down to play is no stress. No ruling up lines and organizing, no pulling out a stitch…
Solar Dyeing With this experiment, as with most , 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….
All parts of the oak tree are very useful when natural dyeing. It has a high amount of tannin naturally embedded in its cells, which means it can be used as a natural source for all your cellulose fibre mordanting needs. Most things that are high in tannin can be a successful dye material, so…
Indigo. So most people know that jeans are dyed with indigo. The indigo dye gives them that beautiful strong blue, which after wear, fades into that warm old snuggly colour that reminds us of comfort and sunny days of old. Indigo is still used to dye jeans, though these days it is a synthetic version…
Indigo. Most people have heard of indigo for natural dyeing. It has been around for thousands of years and is still one of only a handful of ways to dye blue. The indigo dye comes from the leaves and does require a vatting process to be used to extract the beautiful blue colour. There are…
In our last post on Lac we looked at using 2 different dyeing methods to see which had better results. We used both solar dyeing and heat dyeing. Due to the results of these experiments, I decided to continue my journey with lac by using the heating method of dyeing. If you would like full…
Playing with Coffee Now that we know all of the basics of fibre preparation for both wool and cotton, I thought it would be a good idea to see how well coffee can dye a variety of different craft supplies as a bit inspiration for everyone’s varying art and craft projects. Coffee is such an…
Mordanting with alum Mordanting is the second stage of dyeing techniques used in the natural dyeing process. This is the process of preparing your fibres to receive the plant material on a chemical level. Mordanting usually involves the use of a metal compound which helps the dye adhere and stay onto the fibre. It also…