IV. BIOCHROMES¶
The textile industry uses up to 200 tonnes of water per tonne of fabric. When toxic synthetic dyes are used for fabrics, the hazardous chemicals from dyes and the mordants often enter waterways, as detailed in the documentary RiverBlue. The documentary reported that over 70% of rivers in China are polluted, thanks in large part to the pollutants coming from the textile and garment factories. Using natural dyes can still involve a significant amount of water use, but there are no harmful pollutants released into the environment.
ASSIGMENT¶
- Produce at least one natural dye or bacterial dye:
Natural dye - modifying it’s colour and mordanting it in different ways to dye at least 2 different categories of fibres
Bacterial dye - Explored dyeing with bacteria of different fibres and/or bacteria
- Produce at least one botanical or bacterial ink:
Botanical Ink - explore different materials, recipes and understand how to adjust them based on the ingredients
Bacterial Ink - explore bacteria solvents and understand how to adjust or use the inks
- Document your recipes, the ingredients and process and if there have been changes, document your unexpected discoveries:
Name your materials
Classify them by typology
Display them in a systematic order of samples
PROCESS¶
TOOLS¶
- pot, fabric, yarns, scale, measurement spoons, dyeig material
PROCESS¶
Step 1 -WOF- Weight of Fabric¶
Cut the fibers, divide them in vegetable/cellulose and animal weight them.
Step 2 - Scouring-¶
Place the fabrics in a hot pot and wash them separately adding 2% of soda ash of the total WOF and let them simmer for 1h. (This step is really important as it takes off the scours and oil from the fabric, you can even repeat the sequence twice).
Step 3 -MORDANTS (the mordant opens the chemical structure of the fiber so it recives the colour)- Alumn (brightens up the colour) Iron (good for blue hues and greens)¶
We are gonna mordant half the material with aluminium (based on the 12% of the WOF) and half with iron sulphate (1 % of the total weight of the textile ) We are not gonna use the tanning (helps the fiber becomes more colour fast, less fugitive)
1. SILK¶
- silk - 52 x g
- alum - 0.6x g
- iron sulphate - x g
3. COTTON¶
- cotton - 238 g
- alum - x g
- iron sulphate - 2,38 g
2. VISCOSE¶
- viscose - 125 g
- alum - 6,3 g
- iron sulphate - 1,25 g
Step 4¶
Research you material and prepare the dye bath based on the WOF: make enough dye to submerge completely the fibres Measure the PH or your dye
TUMERIC¶
Name(Latin): Turmeric, Curcuma Longa (Curcuma longa of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the roots of which are used in cooking) Origin: "The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, that requires temperatures between 20 and 30 °C (68 and 86 °F) and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive. How it is made: The rhizomes are used fresh or boiled in water and dried, after which they are ground into a deep orange-yellow powder commonly used as a colouring and flavouring agent especially for curries, as well as for dyeing.
Turmeric is what's called a fugitive dye; this means that the colour will fade pretty quickly regardless of anything you do to it (mordanting wise). The colour will fade in the sunshine and run out in the wash really quickly.
Cooking Porcess¶
Half fill your pot with tap water, add the turmeric powder. The amount of powder you use will depend on how much you are dyeing and how vibrant you want the colour (approx 2-3 Tablespoons is good to start), mix it to a paste with a little warm water, stirring well to incorporate all the particles. Add more water continuing to stir for 20 minutes well before pouring it into the dye bath. Rinse out the material and fibres.let your samples dry, once dry these can be separated and sorted out for setting.
(If you are dyeing skeins of yarn, it can be difficult to rinse turmeric powder particles out of the fibers. To avoid this problem, simmer the dye solution for one hour and then strain it through a coffee filter before adding the fibers. Rinse the fibers well after dyeing but always use a pH-neutral washing solution after dyeing the fibers).
Then the fastness properties of the dyeing with different dyeing techniques are compared. the dye is found good saturation and rubbing fastness, but poor washing and light fastness properties on cotton, Applied without any mordant. when dyeing is implemented with mordants, washing fastness. the light fastness properties show improved while rubbing fastness exhibits deterioration.
| TEST | TEXTILE | MORDANT | COLOUR |
|---|---|---|---|
| (a.) | silk | iron | dark orange/brown |
| (b.) | viscose | iron | brown |
| (c.) | cotton | iron | brown |
| (d.) | silk | alum | yellow |
| (e.) | viscose | alum | yellow |
| (f.) | cotton | alum | yellow |
For each of our neutral dyed color we created more color shades, adding in 4 other containers, different Ph modifiers as follow: 1.Vinegar 2.Bicarbonato 3.Alum 4:Iron. Each modifier created a new color, On each container we soaked the pieces of fabric previously dyed so that the fibers could take all the new color created. We classified the fibers,the ingredients, and the modifiers and we created our own color chart that is helping to understand better how the ph changes in the different cases.
NATURAL INK PROCESS To test it, we used onion extract. We filled half of a tall container (at least 1 liter) with the extract. We melt 18g of Alum in a bit of water and add to the liquid. We melt 8g of Bicarbonate in a bit of water and slowly add to the mix. Chemical reaction and separation of the liquid: the bubbles come up and the pigments start to settle on the bottom of the container (this process is called precipitation). Wait for 1 hour. Filter with a coffee filter and let it dry. Dry in a food dryer or oven on low heat for 1-1,5 hour.
GRIND AND MIX Once the pigment is dry, carefully scrape it off the coffee filter. You can use a spatula to stay flat against the paper. Grind the collected pigment with a mortar and pestle. Pigments can be mixed with each other to create clear shades and colors. To create paints and water colors, mix the pigment with arabic gum, soy milk or linseed oil.
MAKING BACTERIA DYE¶
STERILIZE¶
Sterilize with the pressure cooker Add ±1 liter water in the pressure cooker (as reference: less than in the liquid in the bottle you are sterilizing) Put the bottle in the pressure cooker (with the cap slightly unscrewed) if planning on dyeing the textiles, add the disposable autoclave bag with the prepared textiles.
THE MEDIUM¶
Preparing Nutrient Agar - (for the bacteria production) take the 500 ml bottle and fill it up to 250 ml with (distilled if available) water Dissolve 5 gr of nutrient agar (dosage is 20gr / liter) Add 0,5 ml of glycerine with a pipette Close the bottle with the cap and gently mix a little bit Unscrew the cap a little bit so that it’s not sealed Or Preparing Nutrient broth nr 1 – (for the textiles) take the 500 ml bottle and fill it up to 250 ml with (distilled if available) water Dissolve 6,75 gr of nutrient broth (dosage is 25gr / liter) Add 0,5 ml of glycerine with a pipette Close the bottle with the cap and gently mix a little bit Unscrew the cap a little bit so that it’s not sealed
Sterilize working is with ethanol and camping gas - keep a bubble when you are working Take the Petri dishes and pour growing medium - no talking, no moving or breath out over the working area. Place sterilized textile in dish. Innoculate the dish with Bacteria – harvest with the inoculation loop (sterilized on flame) and put on the dish. Identity the dish with the name of bacteria, growing medium, date and our name. Close the petri dish. Put the Petri dishes on the incubator at 24-26ºC and wait days…
OTHER DYES¶
CABBAGE (Very Ph Sensitive)¶
HOW WILL I BE EVALUATED
Master techniques for natural dyeing or bacterial dyeing Master techniques for making botanical or bacterial inks Documentation : Anyone can go through the process and use the recipes Final outcome: understand all the stages of color: a dye, an ink and a pigment Originality - Aesthetics : Has the design been thought through and elaborated