Natural dyeing

Greetings!

As I mentioned in this post, I've been doing some dyeing with natural substances inspired by India Flint's luscious book Second Skin.

At first they all turned out a bit muddy, but slowly I started getting results as I read more and understood fabric types, mordants and processes.

Below is the first successful dye that I manipulated and played with as I went along. This involved pieces of silk, eucalyptus leaves, rusty screws, ash from the fireplace and boiling.

I like how this depicts the move from the natural leafy world to the mechanised one.

I liked this so much I have hung it in my kitchen on a twig. Mind you, the twig is the star in my eyes!

I love how it blows with the wind.

Here I am in my silky shirt once more, playing camouflage against the tree trunk.

And a close up I promised for Melanie of Bag and a Beret. Love the organic ironing?!

Another piece of silk I picked up at our Bus Depot Markets from a Japanese stall. It was reduced due to being stained...from $22 to $8! Little did he realise how many marks it would soon have!

I cooked eucalyptus leaves and masked it with wood so I ended up with little window pane squares. I love how the dye picked up the cloud weave in the fabric.

This is now hanging in my laundry window to be admired!

I've also played with some old silk scarves. These were a plain orangey tan. Now they look much more interesting!

This was in the same dye bath and picked up some tan dye I suspect, along with some onion leaves and copper pennies. Love the green from the copper!

So you can see I'm having a blast!

I have some red onion and red cabbage, and salty fabric with rusty objects currently cooking in the cauldron as I write!

But no matter what I do, I can't hope to achieve the effortless results nature paints on our driveways after a storm.

Eucalyptus trees really are magic!

Til next time, enjoy your creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack