Monday 24 August 2009

Tea scented natural dyeing

Experimenting further with local colours from hedgerows and woodland. A walk on Sunday produced some surprising results as well as spotting a kingfisher on the river.

While boiling these bundles there was a distinctive smell of tea, I suppose this was from tannin in the leaves.

    

I was expecting to use mainly berries and create lots of purples but in fact the best results were from leaves and lichens collected from the woodland floor. Even the nettle leaves appear to have left a stain, although they were a bit prickly.

    

Working with silk, silk/cotton and silk/metal has been good for creating subtle delicate fabrics. While the worsted wool I bought from Whaley's Bradford seems so appropriate for the local area, it seems to take the colour well too.

    

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful experiments. I found your descriptions fascinating. How long did you boil the bundles for?

    Carolyn

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you. I boiled these for about 1 hour.

    ReplyDelete

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