2. Recipe

GOAL¶

Create a natural, ecological and vegetable recipe.

On this page, I'm creating my recipes according different sources. I am going to explore different mordants, different vegetables, differents pots, different time bath, different linen.... it is going to be very fun and very experimented!

BOOK REFERENCES¶

Navajo and hopi dyes
The art and science of natural dyes

MATERIALS¶

Qty	Description	Price	Link	Notes	Have it!
5	wood spoon	$	Bric a brac		OK
2	thermometer	20 euros	carrefour		OK
1	protective apron	8 euros	Bric a brac		ok
1	string	1 $	carrefour		ok
20	clothes peg	1 $	carrefour		ok
5	pot	0 $	home + Oulab	stainless and aluminium steel	ok
1	paper/post-it	0 $	home		ok
1	colander	2 $	carrefour		ok
1	Fine mesh sieve	$	bric a brac
4	cardboard	0 $	Oulab		ok
1	decoction bath	0 $	Oulab		ok
2	spatula	1 euros	carrefour		ok
4	stirrer	$	oulab		ok
1	Scissors	0 $	home		ok
1	measuring cup.	1 $	carrefour		ok
1	scale	0 $	home and Oullab		ok
1	ph indicator	$
	percarbonate		Monoprix		ok
	sodium carbonate		Droguerie x rousse
	organic soy milk	1.30	U expres

RECIPE : From the harvest to the bath dye!¶

From Aurelia Wolff's book

I want to dye white linen first to see how my recipes react and what colours I have. I think it is important to have a base sample. I think it is going to help me to see better with ingredients works and doesn't work. I will have a better idea and control of my recipe for the dyed linen.

After I am going to dye colored linen of course! This is the purpose if my research! So I'm very excited to see how it is going to work. I will also try white linen with dust marks because I think it could be interesting :)

Let's start step by step!

WebSites to buy furnitures

TEXTILE HARVEST¶

For new textile that you just bought, it is good to wash them first with Marseille soap or sodium carbonate to fade them.

1. FOR WHITE LINEN¶

It was easy to find vintage linen textile because all the old sheet are made in linen, and some in cotton/linen. According to the aesthetics, my sheet is in linen. I washed it with natural detergent and percarbonate to eliminate marks. I left it dry.

2. FOR COLORED LINEN¶

It was more difficult than I thought to find colored linen. I made a call to my family and friends but they didn't have a lot to give me. I also wrote to linen companies but they didn't answer.

Anyway, I have small samples from friends, from projects that I did and I also went to car boot sale and I found beautiful organic colored linens so I washed everything with natural detergent and let it dry.

3. EXPLORING WITH RUST MARKS AND SHIBORI MOTIFS¶

I can find dusk marks on linen in Emmaus or create my own dusk, will see when I get there :)

VEGETABLES HARVEST¶

I wanted to experiment waste food because I know we can create beautiful colours with all sort of flowers/plants/seeds ect but it is more difficult to create a beautiful palette with the things we have at home or that is going to the trash.... And seasonal trash... to respect our environment! That is why I went to the market and had for free carots tops. And I just ate a lot of avocado and onions to have enough skin to dye aha.

In fact, my goal is to create a second life for coloured textile but also to explore a feasable process, that people can do at home with little amout of ingredients and tools.

SCOURING¶

WASH YOUR TEXTILE WITH SODIUM CARBONATE BEFORE MORDANTING IT:

boil your textile in water during 30 min
remove and rinse
then boil fiber during 1h with sodium carbonate (around 2 spoons for 4-5L of water)

This process will remove oil, waves and marks. Can be done twice or you can wash your textile a 60 degree before.

MACERATION / DECOCTION¶

Fresh plants don't need to be macerated before dye bath.

Dry plants have to be macerated in water during 24 hours.

Bark (ecorce in french) has to be in water durant 2 days.

Light tones : 10 to 50% of the weight of the fiber

Classic tones : 100% of the weight of the fiber

Darker and bright tones : 200% of the weight of the fiber

• Put fresh water and with no hard (calcaire in french) : 3l of water for 100 gr of fiber

• To increase yellow, add ash water.

Ref home jardin

Pots :

Iron pot : classic ones, no change
Copper pot (little sample) : has influence on the final colour

MORDANTING¶

From the book "Les teintures vegetales" by Aurelia Wolff

Mordancing has to be done before dyeing the textile.

Some colours are more resistants than the others, especially with light and washes. There are "big dies", "small dies" and "fack dies". Mordant has also an impact on the colour. Everything has impact!

Some plantes does not need mordant, they have a big tinctorial power. It is called substantive colour. Even if adding the step of mordancing the textile is always better for the durability of the textile.

Examples : avocado, walnut, cachou

alun for bright colours
iron for dark colours
titanium to reveal dye plants

Mordant has to be adapted according the fiber you are using! For cellulose fiber, like linen, I might need to to gall (combine tanins to help fixing alum on the fiber) the fiber before dyeing it. (page 33 of the book)

1. ORGANIC SOY MILK¶

The milk acts as a binding agent and helps dye darker colours. If you can milk only on some parts of your textile, the dye will be darker only on those areas. It is super cool when you want to make patterns. Organic forms come alive...

This experience is better in a cold space in order to avoid the smell.

Wash your textile with natural detergent and sodium carbonate
Weight your dry textile you're going to dye
In a pot : 5 quarts of water + 1 quart of soy milk
Submerge textile in the mixure and stir to fully soak (leave for 12hours)
spin VERY WELL in the machine and hang to dry
when it is dry, put the textile back in the milk pot (quiclky) and put it again in the spin machine, then let it dry (do this step one more time)
Leave during one week at least - This gives the milk time to bond to the fibres REF

Ref : Rebecca Desnos

Notes : Adding extra layers strengthens the binder, and it is done in quick dips so that the previously adhered milk won’t have time to come off. These extra steps can be omitted if your milk bucket is getting too smelly- you will still get good results from one round of soaking. ref

Mordanting first experiment 20/02

44gr fiber = 1,25L water + 0,25L organic soy milk

Mordanting for second experiment --> Pogaji project :)

600 gr of fiber = 1.5L organic soy milk and 7,5L water
400 gr of fiber = 1L organic soy milk and 5L water

Notes from Cecilia :

When I do the soy milk process, not wait too long to dye otherwise the enzymes will dye, same with UV and heat

2. COW MILK¶

Gumnut Magic

Soak fabric in the mixture less time than in the soy milk because it tends to go bad faster.

REFERENCES¶

Rue de pleine lune

3. GALLING PROCESS for natural/cellulose fiber**¶

The gall walnut process is important for cellulose fabric like linen and very important with some vegetables like onion skins. It is going to help maintaining the color.

Galling process (not mandatory)
let dry your gall walnut
crush them
weight your fabric then soak them
in a big pot : put gall walnut powder (30% of the fiber weight) and add water (enough to cover all the fabrics later), boil during 1 hour then strain
spin your fabric and put it in the pot (>1 hour)
make sure your fabric is always in the mixture and NEVER above (oxydation), no bubble, spin and rinse (cold water is ok because we have cellulose/natural fiber)

Notes : gall walnut will affect the colour of your textile because of tannin

4. ALUM¶

Alum is not considered as a natural dye because alum is harmful for environment and health.

First recipe

We had to put 20% of the weight in alum : 90g alum

Half of the alum weight in sodium carbonate :45g

Vinegar 1L = 100g of alum - 90 cl vinegar (TIPS : for vinegar step by step and wait until it's transparent to put the fabrics)

And water 3L water = 100g fibers : approximativly 8L water
Second recipe

20% of the weight in alum : 110g alum

And water

Because alum doesn’t look good for health and environment, we have to find other solution that works too. Mordanting is a mandatory step for most of the dye.

That is why we have to find solutions :

plants that contain naturally alumina
Plants with tannin like gall walnuts, myrobolan
Plants with oxalic acid as dock (rumex in French), rhubarb, beetroot —> search about VEGETALE ALCHEMY

DYEING WITH YELLOW ONION SKIN¶

COLOURS : Yellow onion skin : yellow, orange, rust

       + iron = green

Onion skins have a lot of tannin and the extraction is very quick!

1. PREPARATION¶

Onion skins give beautiful colors, from a yellow-orangy, to dark ginger. We can keep onion skin during all the year, and leave it in a paper bag + no light + separate yellow and red onion skins because it does not give the same colours (and better to it at the beginning than mixed at the end!).

"So I've discovered the pH levels have an effect on onion skin dye. But so does the protein level of the fabric; cellulose fabric dyes green, whereas soya milk mordanted fabric that contains protein dyes brown!" From Rebecca Desnos site

2. MORDANTING¶

It is not mandatory to do it but I am going to do it to have better result --> durability

So for vegetale fibers : 1 teaspoon of tannin = 100g of fiber 100 g of fiber = 5L of water

Use alum : it gives a beautiful orange/ocre
Use organic soy milk : it gives a beautiful dark pink --> didn't expected that! I will keep trying for sure!

3. DECOCTION¶

100 g of fiber = 5L of water
50g onion skin = 100g of fiber (Ref Teinture Naturelle by Kathryn Davey)
150g of onion skins = 100g of fiber (Ref Teintures vegetales by Aurelia Wolff)

If I want darker colours : gr onion skin = gr of fiber.

Put onion skin + water in a pot
Boil during 30-60 minutes according the colours you want
Pull out the pot from the fire and leave it to cool down the temperature
Filter the bath (it’s possible to add water to the decoction so that the textile are soaked enough)

I will leave the decoction during one night, as the others vegetables.

Do NOT boil the decoction/maceration

4. DYING BATH¶

Raise the temperature of the bath to around 45°
Once at 45 °, we put the dry fabrics into the bath
mix often
Then continue raising the temperature slowly/gradually to around 60/70 °
Once the bath temperature is around 60/70 ° - time/count 45min before taking off the textiles of the bath
leave for 30 min / 2 hours/ 24h (the more you leave the textile, more the color will be intense)
rinse textile with cold water and let it dry in the shade.

5. MODIFIERS¶

alkaline modifier : pH > 7 --> bicarbonate, wood ash
acidic modifier : pH < 7 --> vinegar, lemon
iron modifier : max 10% of the concentration otherwise it will damage the fibers.

Note : remember that tannin and iron together always make black

Recipe for a solution with 100% Iron

200g Iron (sulfate)
2L Vinegar
100g Sodium carbonate

Be careful it blows up if you add the Sodium carbonate entirely ! You need to do it step by step. To use it for modifying the fibers' colours, you need to dilute this solution and make it with a maximum concentration of 10% Iron otherwise it will damage the fibers.

For example, if you made 1L of solution 100% Iron and you want to have 10%, you need to dilute 100mL of Iron 100% in 900mL of water (at room temperature).

6. REFERENCES¶

Book Guide des teintures naturelles by Marie Marquet
book Teinture Naturelle by Kathryn Davey
book Teintures vegetales by Aurelia Wolff

7. RESULTS¶

From first experiment

FIRST BATH

No mordanting
1 bath at bain marie
scouring with percarbonate
1h-4h-24h
bath degree : 60 degree
dates : end 16/02 (one week in a dark and cold room with 2 drops of tea tree essential oil)

Comments : The color is pale pink, not the color I expected aha. The 24h bath gives a beautiful pale pink. After mordanting the samples, they are more pale (see picture) and are less flexible.

important to filter the liquid before doing the second dye bath because there are some residues at the bottom of the bottle

SECOND BATH

mordanting with organic soy milk with Rebecca's technique
one week waiting
2h at 80 degree then overnight (cut samples in two)
2e mordanting
modifier : lemon

From second experiment

March 9

maceration in a classic pot on an electric hotplate for 21gr of vegetable
2h at 80 degree
leave it to cool during 1h
heat again during 15 min at 80 degree
leave it to cool until it is cold (2 hours)
filter decoction

March 10

in alum pot : put water + textile (white) during 2h at 80 degree (allow alum of the pot to attach to the textile)
stir textile
same result as the first experiment.....weird

YELLOW ONIONS WITH ALUM MORDANT¶

alum as a mordant in classic pot, boil 1 hour with 12 gr of alum for 81gr fiber
big rectangle = 32gr fiber / other rectangle 49 gr fiber
boil 27 gr yellow onions for 49 gr fiber during 1h at 80 degree in classic pot
filter
put textile + dye bath at 80 degree during 2h

AAAAAAAH well! a beautiful ocre - orange - yellow! So I think organic soy milk as a mordant has a real effect... will redo again the experiment with organic soy milk because I did not see this info in a book or internet......

DYING WITH RED ONIONS¶

Experiment 2

mordanted fabric with organic soy milk technic
leave it for one week

March 6

maceration in an alum pot on an electric hotplate for 20gr of vegetable / 45 gr fiber
2h at 80 degree
leave it to cool (24h)
filter the decoction
leave it in the alum pot (24h)
dying bath 2h 80 degrees
leave it to cool overnight, let it dry
second bath 2h 80 degrees
leave it to cool overnight, let it dry

DYEING WITH AVOCADO¶

In the market : "Some avocados will turn almost black and have a pinky/purple tinge - these are great ones to dye with."

Avocado skin = more orange --> use 100gr of avocado skin for 100 gr of fiber

Avocado pit = more pink --> you can use only 50% because pit has a lot of tannin so 50gr of pit for 100 gr of fiber

Avocado skin + pit = more red tone

Avocado quality : blanc skin with red marks are the best because they have a lot of tannin

Water quality : hard water gives pink, red, brown and acid water gives orange, coral.

Oxydation will help increasing the color (when you remove it from the pot)