Ecodye (#3 & #4)

     so, i have been doing all sorts of natural dye stuff, and one of the things i have been attempting are ecodyes!  this involves rolling up plants tightly inside fabric, steaming it, leaving it for awhile and then opening it and hoping that you got something nifty!  there is a cold process that i tried, i had left the things rolled up for a month!  the results were unimpressive.  and the first 3 that i did i forced myself to leave for 2 weeks, i just recently unrolled them, after these ones and they were unimpressive too, it could be the plants, it could be the fabric.  it was cotton, but they were cheepo dish towels that i got and i dont think they uptook dye very well.  anyway...
     for these ones i used a piece of cloth i had got from the reuse centre, i assume it is cotton and a piece of some sort of polyester or poly-blend i got from my mom.  you are supposed to use only natural fibers for these things, but i wanted to see if it would work!  i believe i had mordanted them a few times by dipping them in a couple of layers of ash water and soy milk.

     i used the same plants on both of them, mountain ash leaves, oak leaves and creeping bell flower plants (leaves and flowers).  the top one i folded over too and then rolled them up tightly with the help of a stick and tied them up.  i do not have any sort of steamer so i had made a makeshift one using a bunch of sticks and a large old pot i had found at my grandma's place, hey, it works!

     i turned it on to boil and put the lid on and steamed it for at least an hour.  i think it was during this round that i was not paying attention and the pot boiled dry!  ack!  i started to smell this strange woody smell and thought, hmm... i probably should go check on those things!  but it all worked out.  by the end you cold already see the colour from the mountain ash leeching through!  (mountain ash leaves make a reddish dye)

     and then it is wait time.  i let them cool and then put them out on my deck under my bench to sit for awhile until i could open them up.
     so... first i opened up the polyester one, because i did not have much hope for it.  everything i had read had always said you have to use natural fibers.  here is what it looked like:

     and once unrolled, it did have a few faint prints.  there is an oak leaf there, can you see it, on the right?

     and a mountain ash print.

     but the spot where it was tied up is what looked the best.

     on to the next one!  this one had much better results.  when i unrolled it it had lots more colour!

     i attempted to make a little panorama for my scrapbook.

    you could see indications from all the plants in this one, especially the mountain ash!

     but also imprints of the oak leaves.

     and then of course the blue splotches from the creeping bell flowers!

     yay!  i have done some more little ones that i will post a little later.  and i have also done some colour tests that i will post about.  plus i have a couple that are sitting on my deck right now that i plan to open tomorrow and hopefully they turned out good too!  unfortunately my camera is broken right now, i had to ship it back to canon to have it fixed so it will be awhile before i can get any pictures of anything new.  poor camera.