Excited by dyeing

I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it!  I've been bouncing round singing because I have rediscovered eco-dyeing, thanks to my partners in crime, Elizabeth and Miranda.  When I was down south, they attended an ecodyeing workshop with Sandra Pearce. While we were printing at the BIA on Monday, they showed me the wonderful results of their experiments and gave me a brief rundown of the technique and I was inspired to try it myself.  Got home to do a bit of research on line and dipped into India Flint's "Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles", the eco-dyeing bible.  I was ready to go.

The next day, I set off for the morning walk with the dogs, with a calico foraging bag slung over my shoulder.  The walk along Kedron Brook is a lovely one, by the way.  It is a twitcher's paradise.  That morning, I passed my favourite family, the 6 new wood-duck babies, the first of the season, as well as a heron, black ducks, a cormorant, an egret, galahs, corellas, lorikeets, black duck, ibis , native mynahs,swallows, and of course, the Brisbane resident, the Bush turkey:

Anyway, as the dogs and I walked, I picked wattle and gum leaves and put them in my bag for boiling up into a brewing soup later.  (Don't worry, I only took a sprig from each tree and picked up a lot from the ground).   I also picked the occasional flower, berry ( I did manage to eat some wild mulberries too), piece of rusted metal, shapely gum leaves, pieces of bark, I came across.  By the time we got back, the dogs were exhausted and the bag was full.  Miranda and Elizabeth were pretty vague about what was in the dyeing brew, so I filled 2 dyeing pots with the gum and wattle leaves and poured in a bit of alum. Then, I added some used tea bags and some Turkish coffee into one pot, and an avocado stone in the other, simply because I had just eaten the flesh, if truth be known.

 

 I covered the foliage with water and simmered each pan for about 2 hours.

 While waiting, I tore some watercolour sheets into quarters and then into quarters again. Then I folded them into quarters. I next placed my foraged finds on each sheet of paper and folded them, making sure that each side had leaves, berries, flowers, etc touching it. When I ran out, I added things from my kitchen compost bin: avocado skin, strawberry tops and flesh, apple peels, manderine peels, sweet potato peels.

 

  
As I did all this seated on the verandah floor, the dogs at first took a great interest in proceedings.  Then Toby, the dark one in the photo, otherwise known as "good dog" got bored and slept beside me.  Maisie, who is blond and looks innocent, aka "the evil dog", scented potential for trouble, as usual.  She sensed the mulberries and swallowed a lump of the foragings without working out if it was indeed mulberry, or worrying about poison.  I shooed her away and she tried to steal the secateurs.  Later, I discovered she'd snaffled the foraging bag, and chewed off the handle.  Honestly, she is a menace, although she is also funny, charming and loving.  She has, in the past, also stolen and chewed my nice pink bra from the washing basket, eaten a 10 peso note from Argentina, barked  at possoms enough to cause the next door neighbours to complain, and eaten the cat food, in spite of our efforts at discipline.  We must love her, she's still here.

 

After clearing everything away from Maisie's attentions, I cut out two heavy cardboard rectangles for covers/ reinforcement and tied string round the pile to press the sheets together tightly.  This parcel went into the pot with the avocado pip in it and pressed down firmly into the mixture by a piece of old metal, and boiled for 45 minutes.

I also got an old packet of frozen turmeric from the freezer and sprinkled it on the fabric from my last, failed, lichen adventure.

I also got an old packet of frozen turmeric from the freezer and sprinkled it on the fabric from my last, failed, lichen adventure.

This was rolled into a sausage shape and tied tightly into a bundle with string, and immersed into the other pot, to be boiled for 45 minutes.

Then, the moment of triumph.  Both dyeings worked!

I opened up the paper parcels and removed the vegetation.  I found I had to rinse the sheets of paper gently to get rid of some sludge.  Here are some of the dried results:

Gum leaves on this one

Metal and leaves here:

This paper had metal, leaves and mulberries.

 

This had mulberries and leaves

I am afraid the photos do not do them justice.

And the material was fantastic:

 

Got so excited, I have been foraging every day!

The next day, put in another set of papers to brew and got these results (wet).

 

Love the onion skin colours!

Berries and yellow flowers of a weed.

 

Gum leaves and mulberries.

The paper now looks like something out of " Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book" (Jones, T and Froud, B) which my daughter, Kate loved so much.

I am loving this so much and intend to experiment with more  prints in the future.  I think I'll use the paper for printing lino cuts and making little art books.  Or maybe a mixed media piece?