Solar Dyeing








 


 We've been experimenting around here! Oona was very interested in my indoor dyeing experiments with beets and black beans (which I'll share soon!) so I decided to give her a project of her own. We gathered some jars and plant material and filled them with water and set them on the porch for a couple days to soak up the color. Unfortunately, one of the those days it rained, so we didn't get the maximum sun power that the project could use. Ideally, it's better to use giant mason jars and cram them with material, but we used what we had. We also discovered some kitchen ingredients... coffee grounds, carrot peels and frozen blueberries that seemed good candidates. The experiment is still in progress. I soaked material in mordant to fix the dye to the material before rinsing and adding the fabric to the jars. I did simmer the mordant and simmer the fabric to give it the full effect. Some of the dyes soaked up color well in the sun, and we strained the plant material and added the fabric. For the ones that hadn't soaked up the color well, we just added the fabric in with  plant materials. They need another day or so on the porch before they can be removed and rinsed and finally dried. The next exciting adventure will be deciding what to make with the remnants. 


Joining in with KCCO over at Frontier Dreams .

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