Dyeing with natural dyes
For most of October, we learned and experienced using plants and vegetables to dye fabric. Isa Rodrigues, an artist who studied textile conservation with a focus on natural dyes and the adult programs coordinator at TAC was our teacher. she is amazing and knows so much about them.
For my first try I decided to test with red cabbage as it is a vegetable that is grown in my native region near Québec City. I do not know yet if it was used in the old days, but when I will get back home I will be able to use it.
For my first try I decided to test with red cabbage as it is a vegetable that is grown in my native region near Québec City. I do not know yet if it was used in the old days, but when I will get back home I will be able to use it.
To extract the color, you need to boil and simmer it in water for about 2 hours. Depending in how much leaves you put it the water, the color will be clear or intense.
Once the color has be extracted from the vegetable, you can put it aside for now, as you need to tread you fabric before dyeing.
Dyes dont stick to the fabric on their own so if you put your fabric directly in the cabbage water, it won't stay. Dyes need to be helped by a mordanting agent that acts as an intermediary between the fabric and the dye. On of the natural mordant you can use is pomegranate grins. They have a lot of tannins which are a mordant.
Dyes dont stick to the fabric on their own so if you put your fabric directly in the cabbage water, it won't stay. Dyes need to be helped by a mordanting agent that acts as an intermediary between the fabric and the dye. On of the natural mordant you can use is pomegranate grins. They have a lot of tannins which are a mordant.
To extract the tannins, it is the same as for extracting color: boil and simmer for about an hour.
I soaked the yarn and fabric in the pomegranate tannings overnight.
Then boiled them with the coloured water for an hour.
The color did not become that intense. Pretty pale.
The pomegranate gave a color to the yarn and fabric, so that might be reason why:
Here is how the stuff ended up looking. A beautiful yellowish beige (it does not show very well on the picture).
I carded the roving.
And it looks great. I was afraid it would felt in the boiling water, but it did not. It came out very soft.
I spun it. I have about 20 yards of yarn dyed with cabbage and pomegranate.
This is just the first experiment of a year long process I will undergo at the Textile Arts Center. I will explore more colors once I have tested dyeing yarns and rovings with the thermochromic pigments. I will try to come up with color matches using natural dyes.