Thursday, September 14, 2017

Dyeing fabric with flower and iron



Last weekend I tried another technique (seen on facebook) to natural dye wool. I had previously soaked rusty nails etc. in water and vinegar for a few weeks. Then I soaked white cotton fabric in the solution. This would be my "iron blanket" to help dye the wool.
After laying out the wool filled with flowers, I covered it with the iron blanket, rolled it up tight and steamed it for a couple of hours.
 


Left it over night, the next day this is the wool on the left with blanket on the right.



This is so rich in color and much prettier in real life.
The iron blanket will be put back in the solution for another day.



Next piece was colored leaves from my azalea bush and eucalyptus leaves.

 



I love the outline prints from some of the leaves. Don't know how they came about, this is the magic of natural dyeing. You never can quite create the same effect twice.


And from my herb garden, I had a little bit of purple basil left. On to the cloth it went with a iron blanket.



And the reveal.

4 comments:

quilting Deb said...

Kathy....you and your ideas are limitless!! So very pretty, each of them for sure. Not even sure of my favorite, they all look so different and so nice. So glad you keep posting these, for those of us who are less creative. Keep up the good work! Enjoy doing this in these wonderful fall days...Deb C

Judy Martin said...

wow, this post and the last one are very instructive and inspiring. Thank you for sharing your experiments.
xo

Carol Wiebe said...

I came here from Judy Martin’s link, and I am so happy I did. Your experimental approach, and beautiful results, are a pleasure to see.

Kathy -MIQuilter said...

Thank you so much for all your kind comments!

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