We have an eco printing and natural dyeing workshop coming up in December with some dates in 2016 already organised too. So in preparation I've been experimenting lately with various local everyday plants and the bonus is we will have some wonderful yarn bundles for weaving available in our online shop soon.
I ordered a large amount of undyed yarns from Yarnarama. Oh they're so squishy and beautiful!
A few weeks back I dyed a selection of yarns using avocado skins and pits (collected from our morning tea snacks in the studio and home), turmeric and oxalis (collected from the side of the road on the way home from visiting friends on the country).
Oxalis dye pot
The avocado skins went into one pot, the pits into another. Both gave slightly different shades of very light pink. I added some iron to them both to deepen the colours, the yarn dyed with the skins stayed a light dusty pink, the yarn dyed with the pits turned a pink/grey (left in the image below). The yarns dyed in the oxalis pot came out yellow as expected. If I had more flowers to add to the pot I should have got a more acid yellow but the ratio of yarn to plant matter gave a lighter shade. I changed the ph of the dye pot which resulted in a beautiful golden colour.
Hanging to dry. Yarns dyed with avocado skins, avocado pits and oxalis
Silk/wool dyed with oxalis
Turmeric dyed yarn
I've been experimenting more with other plants this past week some of which have given quite surprising and interesting results. I also did some eco printing which I love! I'll share the results once they've dried.
