Visiting a dye tree

The leaves and gum-nuts of this beautiful tree give a rich deep red when steamed or boiled on wool and silk. I make a pilgrimage to pick up windfalls once a month.

A Garden Visitor

Can you see what I see on my wattle tree? This beautiful stick insect is more than 40cm long. Native to my area. Herbivorous, they rely on looking like twigs, when they move they even sway as if blown by the wind.

Rust, Rust and Rust

This was once a baby blue wool blanket. The leaves were soaked overnight in rust water before the fabric was bundled and simmered overnight in a slow cooker.

How to make rust water? There are two ways.

1. Iron Oxide: Ferric (FE2) is known for its rusty deposits on other materials.

Find discarded bits of metal that have gone rusty. For example squashed bottle caps, old bike chains, tin cans and the like. put them in a bucket of water and soak until the water turns a rusty brown. Vinegar helps to speed up the process.

2. Ferous Sulphate: (FE3) is a clear water soluble iron
You can buy Ferris Sulphate from your local hardware or garden shop. Measure out a few teaspoons into a bucket of hot water and let sit overnight. This is also the same compound that humans take as a iron supplement.

The type of Rust Water that you use changes the chemistry of your dye pigments, altering the colour, fastness and fabric stability over time. High concentrations of iron eat away at fabric.

A visit to Gair Park

Windfalls collected

Bundling and Layering watercolour paper and cloth

Into the dye pot which had been simmering with leaves, bark and resin collected from the parks gutters

Out of the dye pot to dry. 

The colours change over time as the dyestuff oxidises

The final results on paper

Rust and Leaves

I think that this is my favourite ecodye so far. Wool dyed with eucalyptus windfalls via steaming. The red dye from the leaves is substantive, a chemical reaction between the protein of the wool fibres and the chemicals in the leaves. The rust creates a black permanent stain in a similar reaction.

Scraps from an old bunch of flowers left at a bus stop.

I've been experimenting with a scrap of silk and a few leaves that came to me via extra decoration in a bunch of flowers. The leaves where slightly purple and I suspected some sort of commercial dye given their sheen.

After 2 Hours of steaming this was the result, the natural pigments intermingling with whatever they were soaked in to create their lustre.

One of the things I love about the ecodye technique is that every piece is unique, each one an unsuspected gift of colour.

Wanderings

After the fire

A patch of bush land that was recently burnt off in preparation for summer. Ash will soon turn to green sprouts and new leaves. The girls are collecting charcoal for making potions and paint in the back yard with mortar and pestle and buckets of rain water.

The Burning of the Vines

A night of celebration at the local winery.

Cat snuggles

Gifts from the playground