The Passage of Time!!

I can hardly believe that it is now 4 years since I learned to dye naturally and to Eco Print on fabric & paper.  If you had told me in 2009 that over 10200 people would read a blog that I posted,  or that it would have 66 people who followed it, I would have said you were crazy.  But that , my dear friends, is exactly what happened.  I have had a wild and crazy time with Mother Nature, and she was generous in rewarding me with wonderful results.

I have added many friends along the way, and that is probably the best thing of all.  I have received help from so many generous people, and I hope I can return the favor many times over.

Please feel free to comment on my blog, the feedback from you is very important to me.  If you have questions, don't be bashful.  I will answer them as best I can or refer you to someone who I know can answer them.  Have a great time, and visit often!

Oh, Nuts!

Here I am again.  Finally.  I apologize for being absent from my blog for so long, but due to family illnesses and my own, plus a very active teaching schedule, I just haven't had the time.  I am about to get caught up and back to my dyeing, so I thought I would show my latest efforts.  I have just  opened a Silk Crepe de Chine scarf, 22" x 90", that I dyed Shibori style using small green hickory nuts and a dye bath that had copper scrap in it. I had used the dye bath previously to print on paper using sea grape leaves, Boston fern, hickory leaves, oak leaves and the leaves from a red passion flower vine.  The container was a galvanized trash can.  I boiled the prints between two ceramic tiles for one hour and left them in the dye bath overnight to cool.  I will post a couple of the resulting prints and the scarf photos after I write this entry.  I hope I can encourage you to experiment fearlessly.  Use whatever fabrics you can and keep good notes.  Natural fibers seem to work the best, but I have printed on cotton polyester blends when the dye bath was very acidic.  I love the prints I get on watercolor paper, and it is rather an inexpensive medium, so feel free to experiment.,

Another Year Ending! Another Scarf is Cooking!

I have been so busy with working that I haven't had much time for blogging.  The year is ending quickly, and most of my dyeable fresh plant material is disappearing into the cold.  Fortunately, I have been a good boy and stored many windfall treasures against the winter,  This past week we had a tremendous thunderstorm with high winds that blew a lot of Autumn leaves to the ground.  I took the opportunity to gather the Wild Cherry leaves and some Muscadine Grape leaves to dye a new scarf.
On a 14"x72" Crepe de Chine scarf that I had dipped in vinegar, I spread out the leaves (some face up, some face down) on the right half of the scarf.    I added small pieces of steel threads from a steel belted radial tire, recycled tea leaves and coffee grounds then folded the left half over the right.  I slowly rolled the scarf into a sausage shape then tied with cotton twine.  I folded the sausage shape in half and again tied the bundle with cotton twine.
My brother has just given me a beautiful old copper kettle, like a giant tea kettle, and I poured some left over hickory dye and some water into it and placed the sausage bundle into the kettle to cook for an hour.  After cooking the bundle, I left it in the bath for 4 hours then removed it and allowed it to remain for three days before opening it to check on the metals.  I liked what I saw and decided to leave it at this stage.
The copper kettle gave me some beautiful green tones.  The leaf impressions were of various shades of green from dark blue-green to pale grey green.  The Crepe de Chine gave a lovely luminescence to the prints.  Some good impressions remained, and on each end of the scarf a single grape leaf impression stood out with its serrated edges like a heart.
I shook out the leaves and wires, then hung the scarf to dry without rinsing.  The vinegar smell was very strong.  As the scarf dried, some of the greens became more subtle and even.  The areas with the wires looked like veins of minerals inside a rock.  The overall effect was very soothing and made you want to read it like the pages of a book.  I think it was successful.
I have posted a photo of this scarf on the left.  Enjoy.

Getting All Steamed Up!

I have been asked by many of my fellow eco printers to show photos of the steamer I use in the oven for eco printing both on fabric and paper.  I am including 3 photo views and I hope that they are not too small to understand.  One view is the steamer clamped and closed, ready to go into a 225 degree (F) oven for 1 or 1+ 1/2 hrs.  The second view is of the steamer open, with the makings of the steaming unit visible.  The third view is another view of the steamer innards that will hopefully give a good idea of how it is constructed.
Whether you are printing on fabric or paper, the important thing is not to let the steamer run out of water.  Do this by starting with nearly 2 inches of water or dye bath in the bottom pan.  Use whatever rack you have available to hold your bundles or prints above the boiling water.  For paper prints, I lay a ceramic tile on the bottom rack then stack dampened papers and plant materials (up to 11 layers) then place the 2nd ceramic tile on top to weight the pile down for good contact.  Place the 2nd aluminum roasting pan upside down on top of the first pan, and use binder clips, bulldog clips or whatever type of clips you have that will withstand the oven temperature to hold the two pans together during steaming.  Place the steamer in a preheated oven at 225 degrees (F).  Close the oven and let cook for approx. 1 hr. or 1 + 1/2 hrs. Turn off the heat and let the steamer cool in the oven overnight.  The next day, remove the cover pan  and the ceramic tile "bundle" from the steamer.  begin to separate thee layers of paper/plant materials.  If the paper is stuck together tightly, pick the stack up and run cold water over it as you separate the layers.  If plant material sticks to it, it is O.K.  When the print is dry, the vegetative material will usually peel away.  If it doesn't you may hold it under running water until it loosen then dry the print again.  I dry my prints by hanging them like laundry on a clothesline with wooden clothespins.  I hope this is helpful. .

I have been experimenting with Pignut hickory (Carya glabra).  I tried the Gesner mordant assessment method, and was quite pleased with the number of different colors or shades of dye that were possible.  After boiling young green Pignut Hickory nuts still in their green hulls for about an hour in a stainless steel pot, I dyed a piece of Tannin mordanted cotton muslin and hung it up to dry.  In the accompanying photo, it is the light tannish piece of fabric to the left. I then took 4 containers and put 1/4 cup of the dye bath into the container and added 4 different mordants; vinegar, alum, soda ash and iron.  The strip of fabric down the center shows the result of dipping tannin mordanted cotton muslin in each mixture in the order listed.  After seeing the results of my experiment, I took 6 cups of dyebath and added the 1/4 cup mixture with iron.  The resulting color is the piece of fabric to the left, a really nice dark grey.  I also took 2 cups of the dyebath and put it in a copper kettle and simmered it first for 20 minutes, then 1 hr., then 2 hrs.  Each time I dipped a piece of paper toweling into the kettle and hung to dry.  The paper strips across the bottom of the photo are the results of the dye on paper.  There is a much more red tone to the brown when the copper kettle as used.  This assessment method is a very worthwhile way to test your dyes for what mordants will do and how to use them to modify colors.

A Big Thank You!

I want to extend a big Thank You to the Florida Native Plant Society for having me as their guest speaker last night.  It is a pleasure to present a program when you know every person in the room is interested in what you are saying.  It also helps to have someone listening who understands binomial nomenclature.  It saves a lot of double talking.  You know you are on the right path when there are lots of questions that lead into more information being given.  This group was doubly wonderful because their principles and goals parallel those of the Natural Dyers:  education, conservation, sustainability and regionalism.  Their warm reception just opened up the flood gates, and information flowed that I had forgotten that I knew.  It was funny to find myself answering questions that I had been asking myself.  Thanks again for a great evening.  And thank you also for your kind words about my work.

Finally, I'm back to the Blog!  Since returning from Europe I have been workshoping and project dyeing along with catching up on personal and family matters that I just haven't had time to sit down and write on my blog.  The past week hasn't helped much with Tropical Storm Debbie dumping nearly 13 inches on my place, seven of them in one 24 hr. period.
This did allow me to save a lot of rainwater for dyeing.  That part is great.  The storm also brought down many branches covered with lichens that I can save and use for dyeing.  Another bonus is the huge spurt of mushroom growth.  I have species I have never seen before, and I will be trying some of them for making dye.
I finally got to try eco printing on one of the beautiful etamine de laine scarves that I purchased.  I will try to post a photo on this new blog format.  This piece was also treated a little differently than my normal scarf projects.  Instead of roll bundling, this one was folded with the materials inside then sandwiched between two ceramic tiles and steamed for 1 hr, left to cool overnight and left to sit for 4 days.  On the fourth day, I opened the bundle to remove the beer bottle caps and other metal pieces to prevent damaging the wool scarf. I was really pleased with what I saw.  I let the scarf remain in that condition for 5 more days, then rinsed.  It did lose a little color, but not much.  I will heat set with an iron then wash.  I hope you like it.