4. BioChromes¶

wool test

Research¶

I am very interested in dyeing with algie since I Matís contected me to do some tests with a blue microalgie that they are working on developing for natural food coloring. I found Studio Blond and Bieber's project facinating as they work with many different coloured algie. That is something I woul like to explore more with the algie around Blönduós or in Iceland in general. Sigmundur Páll's project is a nice overview of the natural colours found in Iceland and he even made a very beautiful book with all of his findings. Seaweed is something that surrounds us and is close by so I did some research around dyeing with seaweed since I have never explored that before.

Blond&biber — Studio Blond & Bieber / Sigmundur Páll Freysteinson / Nienke and Xandra van der Eijk

Studio Blond & Bieber Studio Blond & Bieber

References & Inspiration¶

Hildur Bjarnadóttir is an Icelandic artist working with natural dyes in her work. In her Docotors project , Ecosystem of Colors 2016, she looks at the land she owns and the colors it has to offer. The weaving pieces each have one tread of each color she found and dyed with acrilyc thread intertwining with the natural dyed thread is a symbol for her being on the land.

Hildur bjarnadottir — Photo: Bjarte Bjørkum

Madder Catherine Euale gave a lecture about her amazing work that was very inspiring. Working with biomaterials and mycelium only made me more excited to biomaterial week! She also guided us through the bacteria dye process and saved us by bringing healthy, beautiful, purple bacteria from spain to Iceland.

Tools¶

slides from fabricademy
pots, jars: slide 50 on Biochromes - color & dyes lecture
music for good vibes
Good camera to document
good space to work in
plastic to put on table for protection

Process and workflow¶

Madder This week we all worked together making natural dyes, pigments and inks. It was nice since we all hand some knowledge to share and learned a lot from each other. We started of by deciding what dye baths we wanted to do and calculating how much material we should cut for each bath and so on. It was clear from the beginning that wool was the most popular fiber to dye and work with, also because we are so close to it in Blönduós.

Madder

Scouring material¶

Madder

810 gr wool
2% Sodium carbonate of fabric weight = 16.2 gr
water to cover material
84 gr Silk/cotton/linen
2% Sodium carbonate of fabric weight = 1,68 gr
water to cover material

Simmer for about 1 hour and rinse

Mordant material¶

810 gr wool
12% alum of fabric weight = 97,2 gr
water to cover material
84 gr Silk/cotton/linen
12% alum of fabric weight = 10.08 gr
water to cover material

Simmer for about 1 hour and rinse

Iron modifying¶

100% Iron solution 200 ml vinegar 20 gr iron *10 gr sodium carbonate

mix vinegar and iron together
slowly add sodium carbonate to the solution
10 ml iron solution
90 ml water

Recipe for natural dyeing¶

Getting fiber ready for dyeing

Weigh your fiber material
Scoure the fiber
Mordant the fiber

Getting dye bath ready for dyeing

measure plant weight
- add to the pot and cover the plant with water
- simmer for at least an hour, the cool down

Dyeing fibers in dye bath

strain plant from the dyebath
mix fibers to the dyebath and simmer for at least and hour
- remove fiber from the dyebath and rinse in water
hand up fibers to dry

Iron Modifying

* decide what fabric should be modifyed
* make a 10% iron solution with this[3] recipie
* dip the fiber materil into the iron solution - the longer you keep it in the solution the more the colour changes
* rinse in clean water
* hang to dry
* compare fabric before and after modifying

Imported colour dyes¶

Madder

Madder¶

ingredients

madder root	water	silk	linen	wool	cotton
50 gr	to cover plants	4 gr	10 gr	35 gr	3 gr

Put coocking stove on simmer and dyebath with fiber for about an hour

Madder

Cochineal¶

ingredients

Cochineal	water	silk	linen	wool	cotton
10 gr	to cover plant	4 gr	10 gr	35 gr	3 gr

Put coocking stove on simmer and dyebath with fiber for about an hour

Cochineal

Local colours¶

Lupine¶

ingredients

Lupine dried leafs	water	silk	linen	wool	cotton
320 gr	to cover plant	4 gr	10 gr	35 gr	3 gr

Put coocking stove on simmer and dyebath with fiber for about an hour

Cochineal

Rhubarb Leafs¶

ingredients

Rhubarb	water	silk	linen	wool	cotton
160 gr	to cover plant	4 gr	10 gr	35 gr	3 gr

Put coocking stove on simmer and dyebath with fiber for about an hour

Cochineal

Onion peel¶

ingredients

reb onion peel	water	silk	linen	wool	cotton
75 gr	to cover plant	4 gr	10 gr	35 gr	3 gr

We let the fibers in at the end of our workday and let is sit in cold dyebath over night

Cochineal

Seaweed¶

ingredients

Laminaria hyperborea (Tangle)

Seaweed dried	water	fabric	wool	wool	cotton
310 gr	to cover plant	4 gr	10 gr	35 gr	3 gr

First seaweed try did not work well and gave very little colour so again we tried with a different type of seaweed, a more red one and that gave more colour! We let the fibers sit in cold dyebath over two nights, but still it gave little colour but a nice one.

wool test

Indigo 123 vat¶

ingredients

1 Indigo	2 Calcium Hydroxide	3 Fructose	water	Ph level
15 gr	30 gr	45 gr	1.5 L	10

ratio 1 liter water for 10 gr of indigo 1:10

Tools

big pot or plastic bucket
all ingredients
wooden spoon
protection gloves

Recipe

Boil water and put in the indigo vat container
measure indigo, calcium hydroxide and fructose
first add the lime and fructose to the water
make a indigo paste with water and carefully add the indgo to the solution
stir all together carfully to not add any air bubbles to the vat
Let indigo vat rest over night
big pot or plastic bucket

Dyeing

Soak fibers in water before dyeing with indigo
squeeze water out of fibers
slowly lower the fiber into the indigo vat and try not to add any bubbles
The longer you you have the fiber in the vat the stonger colour it will gain, but it is also possible to dip the fibers more then once into the indigo vat for stronger colour
Once you pull the fibers out make sure there is no dripping into the indigo vat but rather take the fiber to the site and let is oxidice
You will see the colout changing from yellow to blue with the indigo vat meeting oxigen
To stop the oxidation put the indigo into water with a splash of vinegar

wool test

RESULTS¶

via GIPHY

{ width=300 align=right } I made smal felted samples on the feltloom and then i diped half of the samples into either indigo or 10% iron solution. The result are nice and colourful

wool test

Recycling the dye into pigments¶

pigment¶

Pigment consentrades the dyebath to preserve it and ables it to be recycled. you are left with only the pigments from your dye. It can be remade into dyebath, watercolour, paint & screen printing paste. compound?

ingredients

Dyebath	Alum	sodium carbonate
200 ml	10%	2.5%

Recipie

Dissolve alum in hot water
add it to dye bath
dissolve sodium carbonate in hot water
add it slowly to the dye bath
filter the solution
dry it, if it is spread out evenly on baking paper it dries quicker
grind and preserve in a class jar or other forms

wool test

Pigments we made

Silk screen paste¶

pigment	xantham gum	hot water
1 tspn	1/4 tspn	100 ml

Dyebath	xantham gum
100 ml	20%

Recipie * Boil dyebath down to a dense paste by stiring regularly * add guargum or substitude with xantham gum to turn into paste * screen print on mordanted fabric / if not mordanted you can add alum to the paste * hang fabric to dry * steam fabric to about 30 minutes to finalise process.

wool test

Inks¶

inks

Bacterial Dye¶

Visiting and working at Biopol BioPol is a marine biotechnology company established on Sept. 1st 2007. It is located in Skagaströnd in Northwest Iceland. There we got a small introduction from Jens, a marine biologise and researcher, about the lab. Next Cathrine Euale showed us how to prepare both nutrient agar solution for bacteria growth and an LB broth solution for bacteria growing on textiles. Unfortunatley we did not have long time there and like everything this week it took patients to wait for the pressure cooker to finnish. Because time ran out we shipped everything with us back to the textileLab and finnished both preparing the petridishes to inoculate pacteria growth and inoculate the LB broth solution with bacteria. We have not yet finished the bacteria dye since we only had short time at the Biopol and newly got healthy bacteria to work with. Excited for next steps!

Tools

250 ml glass bottle with cap
nutrient broth (lb broth)
nutrient agar
pipette
glycerine
water
pressure cooker
petri dishes (glass is reusable)
inoculation loop
camping gass + lighter
parafilm tape
ethanol
autoclave bag
incubator
fabric
facemask

Madder

Agar plate for bacteria growth**¶

for goood instructions to follow

Bacteria	nutrient agar	water
Janthinobacterium lividum	5 gr	200 ml

take the 250 ml bottle and fill it up to 200 ml with water
Dissolve 5 gr of nutrient agar
Close the bottle with the cap and gently mix a little bit
Unscrew the cap a little bit so that it’s not sealed

Lb broth for textiles¶

Bacteria	LB broth	water
Janthinobacterium lividum	5 gr	200 ml

take the 250 ml bottle and fill it up to 200 ml with water
Dissolve 5 gr of nutrient broth
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

Set the pressure cooker to high pressure
put the cooker’s temperature to low heat for ±20 minutes
turn heat off and wait until the pressure cooker’s pin is down and there is no more steam (pressure is off)

Prepare

Prepare the petri dishes by writing all the information on the back (medium, bacteria name, date and person)
Poor alcohol on the table and sterilize the area
Place the camping fire next to the sterile area and turn it on
Unscrew the bottle’s cap but try to hold it close to the bottle opening for less contamination
Quickly open the petri dish and poor in a layer (a couple of mm) of nutrient agar
Let it rest until firm

Inoculating

Place the camping fire next to the sterile area and turn it on
Take the metal inoculation loop and sterilize it by passing it onto the flame
With quick and carefull movements: open slightly the cap of the dish with the bacteria towards the flame
Dip the still warm inoculation loop in the medium next to the bacteria (not on bacteria)
Now swipe gently over the bacteria
Trasfer bacteria on the new petri dish (or on the textile)
Seal the petridish with some Parafilm tape

Inoculating

Poor some alcohol on the table and sterilize the area
Place the camping fire next to the sterile area and turn it on
Take the metal inoculation loop and sterilize it by passing it onto the flame
With quick and carefull movements: open slightly the cap of the dish with the bacteria towards the flame
Dip the still warm inoculation loop in the medium next to the bacteria (not on bacteria)
Now swipe gently over the bacteria
Unscrew the bottle’s cap and try to hold it close to the bottle opening for less contamination
Trasfer bacteria into the nutrient agar solution
Seal the petridish with some Parafilm tape

Growing store petridishes at around 22-25 degrees celsius in an incubator or similar. In Iceland we still do not have an incubator(but in hardware week things will change) so we dound a nice cosy place first next to the radiator and then they moved into Lousie's house for even better conditions! The materials I used was silk and Icelandic sheep wool. The silk turned out really well but the wool turned more greyish out, but a good comment from Petra Garajóva is to dye the wool 2-3 more times to have the wool really take in the pigment!

1 stage	2 stage	3 stage
material right after bacteria transfer	after 1 week of growing	en result after killing the bacteria
The materials I used was silk and Icelandic sheep wool.

recipe: Scouring material ↩
recipe: Mordant material ↩
recipe: 10% Iron solution ↩

Last update: 2023-05-17