As promised, I'm writing about natural dyes.... infact having spent several days thinking about what to write, how to explain etc... I've decided the best way is to break things down into parts.... and so for the next few weeks or so I'll hope to write about natural dyes here every Tuesday.... let's call it dye studio Tuesday.....
So, first a big shiny disclaimer: I am not a fully qualified chemist or dye instructor.... and I don't usually write 'how-to' articles (they bring me out in a strange rash and I start to talk like Delia Smith - scary...) I can share here several years experience of experimenting with plants and making dyes to colour wool, silk and cotton. And I am happy to share my own personal opinion on how you might go about dyeing with natural colours.... One thing you learn is: results will vary! This is something to write in your notebook - it's a nice idea to keep a notebook of dye experiments, but I've never been so organised, I have several notebooks going back over about ten years and some of them contradict each other and of course my dye methods have evolved over time....
There are several books I've found helpful and I'll give a small list at the end of this.... I've read books by various authors... some books are written from the perspective of a textile artist whilst others are more about dyeing yarn for knitting or wool for spinning.... There are books interested in 'heritage crafts' and books about natural dyes and herbs.... I got interested in natural dyes because of an interest in gardening and because I've always liked making potions, ever since my sister and I made a huge vat of rose 'perfume' in the garden each Summer, left it to ferment in the sun until it started to pong so badly.... it was bottled and sold to our neighbours:).... there is something slightly witchy about natural dyes, I won't deny it, but I want to say now that the you really need very little in the way of paraphenalia and you don't need a garden.
Many books and 'recipes' for natural dyes talk of using a series of chemicals for preparing and fixing and changing and enhancing and scouring and darkening and so on.... and you might be left thinking, hmmm I don't like the idea of using all these chemicals, I just want to make a dye in as simple a way as possible.... you can, it is possible, but you have to experiment a bit and you need to learn for yourself what plants will give you the colours you want.
I've been experimenting with dyeing wool, silk and cotton - but most recently most of my dyes have been for cotton and so that is what I am going to write about here. Cotton is not the easiest of materials to colour naturally. Wool is probably the most cooperative stuff to try and colour, and perhaps it is worth experimenting with wool, either spun yarn or unspun fluff, if you want easier-ish results. However, cotton is my choice right now because I want to use it in my textile work... IF you are happy with slightly paler, softer, gentle hues then cotton and natural dyes are a happy choice... Silk will take colours beautifully and I've had success with silk in the past, especially silk and flower dyes.
Something you might also note from reading about natural dyes is the need for lots of cooking up of pans and so on. Well, it used to be that I would simmer the fabric for ages and then the plant material for ages, and dip thermometers (for ages) and generally it was a very time-consuming process that meant I had to keep my eye on the boil, literally.... but I've changed the techniques a lot in recent times because I don't want to do all that, I want to use as little electricity as possible, I don't want my kitchen to be taken over and I want the dye process to be contained. For me it is satisfying to use as little electricity and even water, as is necessary....
Plants are curious and beautiful deceivers - just when you think you know a plant it offers new surprises.... I've always loved lady's mantle, a green Spring perennial with frothy yellow-green flowers.... but I did not know it was a dye plant until I tried it and then read afterwards that yes it is a dye plant..... it gives yellow, greens and tan tones and can work on cotton without any mordant. Lady's mantle contains quite a bit of tannin which means the colour will stick to the fabric, perhaps a little better than other colours might. So plants with tannin, like tea, will work well on cotton.
When I first started experimenting with natural dyes I tried out all kinds of plants from my garden. Back then I was living in Cambridge and had far more plants than I do now and also I had use of a outdoor workshop, which was useful. But now I have less, I know more and so that's ok, though I am still learning and am no expert... During my early 'dye days' I was encouraged by the work of textile artist Amanda Perkins who now runs a very successful natural dye studio, selling wool yarn. Amanda and I exchanged several emails about different plants that might be 'worth a try'. I remember Amanda telling me how she had spent ages digging up dandelion roots because they supposedly gave red dye, rather like madder. However, many hours and sore hands later, no red dye. Perhaps hoping I had different soil conditions, I attempted the same thing - digging up roots and boiling.... and boiling.... and got the same kind of sludgey results...
This is it, you just don't know for sure until you try. I know you want me to tell you how on earth to dye already... so I'll explain here just one process that I've worked out and that works for me.. and this is dyeing cotton using black viola flowers....
These are the basic stages for dyeing a small piece of cotton with black viola flowers. I want to say an important thing here and that is - all my dye experiments are with quite small amounts of fabric and I have no experience of large scale dyeing. I dye so that I can have a little bit of this colour, a bit of that.... If you want more then you will have to think around it a bit....
Firstly, you need black violas..... I bought a plant from a garden centre but you can also grow from seed. They are easy to grow and propagate and can be grown in a pot, so a garden is not essential. What I do is pick a few flowers when they are at their best and then put them in an ice cube tray. This keeps the flowers fresh and also helps in the dye process because one thing about dyeing with flowers is their sensitivity to heat.... if you try boiling up flowers you get brown mush, quite possibly... Other dye materials such as nettles need to be boiled, but flowers are good for a slow, solar dye process. Which is what I love to do...
I first dyed with black violas about seven years ago - I noticed how the flowers 'leaked' a blue colour when you picked them. So I tried to dye silk. Seven years later and that silk is still blue. There is a myth around natural dyes and that is that the colours all fade. Well all types of dye can fade, in different ways, over time... natural dyes can fade and change slightly but there is no sudden overnight vanishing, not in my experience.
I dye best quality cotton. And just a small strip or square at a time because I use glass jars for the dye process. The fabric is best soaked in water before you begin. There is no real need to 'scour' fabric in my experience, unless it really feels stiffened by the manufacturing process - well I would avoid using that fabric.
Not all dyes require a mordant - a chemical to help fix the colour - but I use it will the violas. I use alum which is considered to be a relatively safe and 'non toxic' mordant. You can buy it via textile craft stores online. As I am only mordanting a small amount of cotton I will literally use just a large pinch of alum. I put the alum in the bottom of a clean glass jar and add a little hot water, allow the alum to dissolve, add a little more hot water and then put the wet fabric into the jar. Have the fabric completely in water, put on a lid, place on a sunny windowsill so it is kept warm and leave it there for several hours prefably overnight.
Next day, the fun bit. I take my viola ice cubes out of the freezer. But before I can do anything else, the fabric needs to be rinsed. So carefully the fabric is rinsed and any left over mordanting water is flushed away. The jar is rinsed and I'm ready. I wrap the wet fabric around the ice cube flowers and stuff the whole wrapped thing into the jar. Obviously you have to work out how big your jar is and how many flowers, cubes you have etc... I recently started to dye a strip of cotton and it weighed 40g. I used about eight flowers and this will give a good pale blue colour.
So now the ice cubes slowly melt and because they are stuck the fabric interesting results come about with smudges of colour etc... if you add more water to the jar then you dilute the colour and the fabric may become more evenly dyed... I experiment with more or less water. I'll leave the jar, perhaps open up once or twice a day to 'check things', but will leave it more or less as is for a few days, at least.
here you can see several jars on my window sill, sitting in the sun... this is slow solar dyeing and now we are in the middle of a heatwave so.... I've dyed with other flowers, dahlias are especially good to try, so black violas are not the only flowers to try.
This has been a rather rambling intro, but I hope it helps to give some insight.... and like I said next Tuesday I'll write part two.....
Tomorrow I have new drawings and more to share x
