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ECO COLOURbotanical dyes for beautiful textiles

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part oneBEFORE YOU BEGIN

Natural dyes a context

Collecting plants a protocol

part twoTHE WORKSPACE: HARVESTING,

HEALTH, AND SAFETY

Equipment and a place to work

Harvesting and storing plants for dyeing

part threeNATURAL DYESTUFFS

Some traditional dye materials

part fourPREPARING, PROCESSING,

AND APPLYING DYES

Preparing to dye

Mordants

Processing plant dyes

part fiveSOME SPECIAL DYE-PLANT GROUPS

Eucalyptus dyes

Beyond the eucalyptus

Ice-flower dyes

Fruits and berries

CONTENTS

part sixSPECIAL EFFECTS

Cold-bundled eco-prints

Non-eucalyptus eco-prints using hot bundling

Hapa-zome beating colour into cloth

Dyeing wool yarn and sliver

Multicoloured yarns

Printing with plant dyes

Using shibori techniques and layered dyeing

Resists

Solar dyeing

Mud and cow patties

part sevenSOME OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

The importance of water

The importance of time

Caring for cloth

Disposal of wastes

part eightREFERENCES

Further reading

Websites

Index

About the author

Acknowledgments

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Bundle-dyed recycled cotton shirt collage

(crimson stains from Eriococcusinsect).

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Different plants and plant parts require different treatments on the road

to the dyepot. Think carefully about which approach you will use. For

example, blue and purple flowers, being quite delicate, will often simply

turn brown in a hot solution. Anyone who has ever admired the delightful

dried cornflowers in Lady Greys tea blend before pouring on the boiling

water to make the brew will know that the blue colour vanishes in

seconds. So it stands to reason that such things as flowers require a

cooler method.

Blue flowers give the best results when the ice-flower technique (see

page 138) is used. Yellow flowers, on the other hand, seem to respond

quite well to hot processing (see page 106).

Eucalyptus flowers can be simply soaked in water at room temperature

for a couple of days, during which the liquid will absorb most of the colour

from them.

Tough plant parts, such as leathery leaves, barks, and seeds, benefit

from soaking in water overnight before processing. Crushing, grinding, or

macerating to expose as much surface area as possible to the dyebath will

help the extraction of colour.

Consider whether you wish your cloth to be evenly dyed, in which case

you will require a pot that is sufficiently large to allow movement of the fibre

during processing. Should you wish the plant material to make patterns on

the cloth, think about eco-printing instead. If you do use a large pot, plan

to recycle the leftover liquid in another dye-bath.

treating the fibre before dyeing

It is traditional to thoroughly wash or scour all fibres before dyeing.

Certainly scouring greasy wool helps even take-up of colour, but violent

boiling of new cloth to remove factory-added starch seems extreme,

particularly as that starch may actually have helpful mordant properties.

PREPARING TO DYE

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Many would-be dyers have applied the traditional boiling methods to

brilliantly coloured flower petals and discovered that the colour in the

petals dissipates with rising temperatures. The method described here

was discovered as a happy accident due to the storage of flowers by

freezing. It works to best advantage on silk.

I had realised some time ago that the only way of getting satisfactory

colour from such plants as violas, delphiniums, iris, pelargoniums, and

petunias was to extract it by squeezing the flower petals in cold water

and then adding small quantities of safe mordants.

making an ash

solution

Take a cupful of ash from the

fireplace and mix it with a few cups

of hot water, being careful to avoid

breathing in the dust. Stir well and

pour into a double-cloth strainer

made by lining a plastic colander

with two thicknesses of old sheeting.

Make sure the receiving vessel

is something inert, such as glass,

ceramic, or enamel. This solution

will be quite alkaline, and you will

need to experiment to see just how

much dilution is required for your

ice-flower potion.

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INDIA FLINT is a designer, artist, writer, and sheep farmer.

Her work has been greatly influenced by her extensive

travelsfrom Melbourne to rural Austria to Montreal. She

is known for the development of the highly distinctive

eco-print, an ecologically sustainable plant-based printing

process giving brilliant color to cloth. Flint has been working

with plant dyes for more than 20 years, and she has artworkin myriad collections and museums in Australia, Latvia, and

Germany. She currently lives in South Australia.

BEAUTIFUL AND ECO-FRIENDLY

COLOR CAN BE YOURS!

The essence of plants bursts forth in magnificent

hues and surprising palettes. Using dyes of the

leaves, roots, and flowers to color your cloth and

yarn can be an amazing journey into botanical

alchemy. In Eco Colour, artistic dyer and colorist

India Flint teaches you how to cull and use this

gentle and ecologically sustainable alternative to

synthetic dyes.

India explores the fascinating and infinitely

variable world of plant color using a wide variety

of techniques and recipes. From whole-dyedcloth and applied color to prints and layered dye

techniques, India describes only ecologically

sustainable plant-dye methods. She uses

renewable resources and shows how to do the

least possible harm to the dyer, the end user of

the object, and the environment. Recipes include

a number of entirely new processes developed by

India, as well as guidelines for plant collection,directions for the distillation of nontoxic mordants,

and methodologies for applying plant dyes.

Eco Colourinspires both the home dyer and textile

professional seeking to extend their skills using

Indias successful methods.

Hardcover, 878 1058, 240 pages,

ISBN 978-1-59668-330-3, $40.00

Available September 2010