After discovering a love of fabric dyeing, I wanted to experiment further and learn about natural fabric dyeing. I started by dyeing with Madder.
So, I've learnt to dye fabric with the usual commercial dyes, and I've seen loads of information about people using natural dyes. However I'd only ever tried natural dyeing once before. This was with red cabbage, and I had some very unpredictable results. Fun, but the colours that came out were nothing like I expected, mainly green! Not sure what happened there, and but there's probably some very scientific explanation for it. One day I'll research it and have another go!
So anyway, this time armed with some more information, and some natural dye in powder form, I gave dyeing with Madder Root Extract a try. This time was more predictable, although, not entirely as I hoped. Natural dyeing is definitely a steeper learning curve than using your standard commercial dyes.
The process
Natural dyeing is clearly a lot more long winded! Firstly you need to weigh your fabric, so that you can work out how much dye etc you will need to use. I tried a combination of all sorts of different fabric including, some cotton, some muslin, a bit of old white T-shirt, a bit of silk, a bit of ribbon and a variety of threads.
After weighing it is important to wash the fabric in a neutral detergent to remove any sizing, therefore making the fabric more receptive to the dye. It's fine to wash the fabric in the washing machine, but a very idea to put the threads in the machine. I learnt this the hard way once before, when it took me hours to untangle all the thread!
The next step is mordanting. This process helps the dye attach itself to the fabric. For madder root dyeing, a mordant of gallnut extract (10% weight of fabric) is recommended. This is done in hot water, and left for 1 -2 hours. After the fabric has been rinsed another round is required this time with alum (12% wof) and soda ash (1.5% wof), again in hot water for 1-2 hours. After rinsing, you can either dry and dye later, or go straight to the dyeing stage.
While all this is happening, it's a good idea to dissolve the madder root extract in hot water (5-10% wof), as this may take a few hours for the powder to dissolve properly. Then add the dye to a pot of hot water, before adding the fabric to the pot. Increase the temperature to around 65⁰C. This needs to be maintained for at least an hour, until you are happy with the colour. Mine was look a rather merky, horrible colour, or I needed to add some extra soda ash, as an alkaline modifier. But this really varies depending on your local water.
I was hoping for a darker colour on some of the fabric, but for some reason I couldn't get it any darker. Definitely more research needed. Remember if you are going to try any kind of fabric dyeing (natural or otherwise), you really need to buy separate pots and utensils that are never used for food preparation. Just because something is natural, it doesn't necessarily mean it is safe to be consumed!
Not quite the colour I had hoped, but I actually quite like the dusky pink colour that came out.
I then decided to use it all to stitch a pretty heart all in the same colour. That's one of the things I like best about dyeing my own, is that the fabric and threads dyed together all match so well together.
More natural dyeing experiments coming soon.....
But first you can read about my next embroidered sculpture - a poppy: Embroidered Poppy Sculpture (claireharveyembroidery.com)