natural dyeing

Just before I left for Toronto in June, I did some great natural dyeing with some Guild members. I had bought a natural dyeing kit from Michelle Wipplinger in Seattle. I have been dyeing with plant materials for years, but this was a new way of doing the same thing. Earthues Dyes are concentrates, and you do not need to boil your skeins for long period of times, as a matter of fact, we just made up stock solutions and painted the dyes right onto our prepared warps, wefts and skeins. You do set the colours by either steaming or nuking it for a couple of seconds in the micro wave oven. After that you let it all air dry. Well mine were air dried for over 8 weeks and finally, this afternoon I washed them all. The colours stayed nice and clear and all is now hanging on the wash line out side I dyed wool, cotton and rayon. Michelle also advices to use a different alum for mordanting cotton and that was a new one for me as well. It works very well. We found that out when one of us did not have the aluminum acetate, and she used the potassium aluminum sulfate, like we have used for all fiber mordanting. Her dyes washed nearly all away, so for all your natural dyers do take note. You also do pre wash and soak your cottons in soda ash as well. Now for the weaving. The colours are rich and beautiful. It is going to be a fun project. One of the scarves is wool and rayon. I hope to felt the wool so the rayon will bubble up. This is also a first for me, so it will be an adventure

Here is Michelle Wipplinger's website, enjoy

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Els van Dam
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