Did these a while ago; going through my fabric pile/s I rediscovered them.
I remember doing a lot of dyeing on linen, and pre-mordanting with soya milk. As you can see, there are a lot of creases in the fabric! I don't mind that.
I'm currently looking at some leaves dipped in iron water, in a silk bundle and steamed. Not used that technique before....so I await the result with interest.
Black cotton folded and Domestos bleach dripped onto the folds. I left it a few days, until I could see the fabric lighten. Rinsed it out quickly so the bleach didn't rot the fabric, and create holes.....though that could turn out to be a happy accident? Next time?
The fabric really is black; the second photo shows a more true colour.
I pinned it onto the cotton/linen mix fabric that I'd dyed using black bean water. It's a bit too heavy, so I'm experimenting with different ones. I'm stitching that seed stitch I'm so taken with. The next thing really is to get the right fabric to attach to it. Then I can stitch away to my heart's content........is one's heart ever content?
I collected some eucalyptus leaves from my friend's tree, and have made up this dyepot with them. Two bundles of a cotton/linen fabric mix have been folded, and dropped in.
The smaller one, was dropped in as it is; the larger bundle has been pre-mordanted with soya-milk.
I'm going to leave both bundles in for quite a long time I think. Try to get a dense colour.
Once dry, I'm going to experiment with the collography plate I've been working on. See what it prints up like. It's drying in the studio at the moment; the varnish is stinky!
At the top of the picture is 2 pieces of linen ; and at the bottom is a piece of silk (second hand!), both dyed using eucalyptus leaves.
The silk was blue to begin with, and it's gone a lovely pale green colour. The linen pieces (both pre-mordanted with soya milk) came out a pale pink. It's strange to get two completely different colours from the same dye-bath. Not sure how that's happened.
I might have to over dye the linen again, to try and darken it. The patterns of the dye-ing stand out much better against a deeper/darker colour.
