Eco Dyeing

I had this gorgeous bouquet of roses in the most glorious colorway so I wanted to savor them and try my hand at eco dyeing. I had some silk pieces on hand (habotai and dupioni) that had been mordanted with Alum a while ago for a class I was taking and that had never been used - I wet the silk; spread the petals (from 2 dozen roses), some leaves and the hips before layering the fabric accordian style. I bundled it up, tied it tightly, put it in a pot of boiling water with a tiny bit of lemon and cherry Koolaid as the fabric was just so white! then I wrapped it with saran wrap and sat out in the heat for a couple of days.

this is it being unwrapped; the habotai took the color better than the dupioni; very subtle and so delicate - I love it!

The other pieces were ho hum so I found (actually my husband found) some really rusted barrel hoops that I wrapped it around after rewetting it- this WAS supposed to be an experiment after all - wrapped it again with saran wrap and left it out in the elements. I loved the black marks made by the rusty hoops.

Still not totally satisfied with the background, I used some blackberries that I'd saved in the freezer - cooked and strained them before wrapping the fabric in rubber bands and re-dyeing - I just love how it turned out. I have rinsed it but I'm going to leave it to cure for a while before I try felting with it.

It is so dull today so the pictures aren't great - you truly can't see the subtle colors and the gorgeous sheen - the dark rust marks are just so neat - I love them! - I had no idea that the rust would turn black. I'm really interested now in pigment dyeing and have been gathering information and learning all I can - that will be my next experiment, I think.