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4. BioChromes

RESEARCH & IDEATION

FROM THE LECTURE

Through the lecture they showed us how the dyeing industry is sincredible contaminating, and all those chemicals used are contaminating water from all over the world, so we should definitely return to our roots, to nature, and see what we can do with what’s found there, it means let’s practice some natural dyeing!!!

FUNDACIÓN SAN LORENZO.PAPER WORKSHOP.BARICHARA,COLOMBIA

There is a really nice small town near my hometown in Colombia, which is called Barichara, there you can find very pretty colonial houses, and also everything is surrounded by nature as it is in the mountains, there is a very popular and touristic activity, that is a Paper Workshop, they extract the natural fibers and then dye it naturally and sell these products, all in a sustainable way, it’s really inspiring as they give the community jobs, good quality products and also the most important, they teach everybody who goes there the importance of taking care of our environment.

SABER ANCESTRAL SANTANDER.COLOMBIA

At the beginning of this year in May I had the opportunity to participate in a ‘feria’ fair with my brand in my hometown, and I found out about this other brand who surprised me because they sell unique pieces of clothing dyed naturally and even do workshops to teach people how they work and that it’s truly a completely natural process, so when I was told about what we were doing this week I regretted a little bit not have gone to one of their workshops to have more idea about the topic jajaja but still the clothing they sell is very pretty, environmentally friendly and completely artisanal.

I found it deeply inspiring…

REFERENCES

STEPHANIE-JOHNSON By now I must seem like a Stephanie Jhonson fan as I’m constantly checking her work for my references jajaja, but the sheet she has in her documentation is very organized and clear and she even did some fun facts for some dyes which I found different and so cool!!!

FAB LAB BCN Also another nice reference is the one from the collaborative works by Ruby Lennox, Maria-Rigina Chatzivalasi, Julija Karas, Hala Amer, ChungHan Lu, and Barbara Rakovská, with mentorship from Petra and Julia. They were so detailed and organized that you can easily understand the whole documentation and the process.

Tools

  • Pots
  • Measuring cups
  • Spoons
  • Silicone Spatula
  • Scale
  • Bowls
  • Containers
  • Tape
  • Marker

PROCESS

GET THE SOURCES!

First we were all asked to collect the food waste we could for this week, so we had many sources to play around with, I brought some onion skins, a funny thing is that my roommate is a cook, so a random day I arrived with a bunch of onions hahaha and told him what we could do with that, so he made the most delicious onion soup ever and then I took those skins to the Lab, while other brought coffee, rosemary, and other things, and Petra already had for us some cabbage and campeche so we had many options for the dyes.

FABRIC CUTTING & CLEANING

_ Then, we had to prepare the fabric to get dyed!

I learnt that there are two kinds of fibers which I had no idea about and the cleaning process to each kind is different:

  • PROTEIN FIBERS: Rinse them under warm water with a little bit of soup

  • PLANT FIBERS: Scouring 1 hour with sodium carbonate

This helps the fabric to 'open up' to absorb the dye. And we did what Petra taught us to call ´Spring Rolls´ which are rolls of 4 differente fabrics (Cotton, Viscose, Silk & Linun)

DYE BATHS

For me this part was very cofusing as I've never done this before and I'm not a big fan of cooking or chemistry haha so yeah, at the beginning it was pretty confusing, but after a while I understood is not difficult, you just have to get tha hang of it out of practice, so at first I didn't know what I was doing but there's a thing I love to say:

¨I don´t know what I'm doing but I look great doing it¨

Haha this pretty much summaries my experiencec the first two days. But, then we had fun dyeing the fabric.

I felt like I was in a Harry Potter's potion class :)

Here I made a drawing about the process to dye bath fabric so it was easier for me to understand as I wasn't familiar with any of this before and was very confused at the beginning

FUN FACT I don't like cooking and this was very similar but I must admit that I enjoyed this a lot more than cooking at home...

DYE BATH RECIPE

* measure
* add
* simmer
* mix
* remove
* strain
* repeat

MORDANTS

It's very interesting that you can change the ph of the dyes and it will change the result, the colors can differ a lot or a little depending on the base, for the mordants we used mostly:

  • Iron - To get darker and deeper colors
  • Alum - To get brighter colors

Others that can be used are lemon, vinegar, sodium carbonate, play with these and get different results!!!

TESTS

Here you can see a sheet with the information about some sources we used

Source name Total Weight (g) Mordant Color Pantone
Cabbage 1515.4 None Light purple Pantone 667 C
Cabbage 1515.4 Iron Dark blue Pantone 425 C
Cabbage 1515.4 Alum Dark purple Pantone 269 C
Cabbage 1515.4 Papaya Violet Pantone 437 C
Cabbage 1515.4 Lemon Pink Pantone 682 C
Cabbage 1515.4 Lemons & 2 gr Sodium Carbonate Dark pink Pantone 688 C
Cabbage 1515.4 2 gr Alum & tbsp vinegar Vibrant purple Pantone 260 C
Lavender 1796 None Light brwon Pantone 400 C
Lavender 1796 Iron Dark brown Pantone 404 C
Lavender 1796 Alum Beige Pantone 452 C
Onion (white) 9.8 None Reddish brown Pantone 479 C
Onion (white) 9.8 Iron Dark brown Pantone 133 C
Onion (white) 9.8 Alum Bright yellow Pantone 111 C
Spinach NI None Very light green Pantone 400 C
Spincah NI Iron Very light green Pantone 413 C
Spinach NI Alum Very light green Pantone 453 C
Pomegranate NI None Light yellow Pantone 465 C
Pomegranate NI Iron Dark brown Pantone 404 C
Pomegranate NI Alum Brownish yellow Pantone 617 C
Beans 1000 None Blue Pantone 425 C
Beans 1000 Iron Dark navy blue Pantone 274 C
Beans 1000 Alum Purplish blue Pantone 432 C
Spirulina NI None Green with some dark spots Pantone 416 C
Spirulina NI Iron Dark green Pantone 413 C
Spirulina NI Alum Light green with darker spots Pantone 415 C
Bark NI Iron Light brown Pantone 404 C
Bark NI Alum Light yellow Pantone 466 C
Campeche 50 None Bright red Pantone 175 C
Campeche 50 Alum Dark purple Pantone 2695 C
Campeche 50 Iron Dotted deep red Pantone 168 C
Campeche 50 Pomegranate Stained Yellow with dark purple Pantone 465 C 
*The ones that say NI means there is no precise information

PIGMENTS & INKS

Here we continue the no waste adventure and it is that from the dye bath left we can make pigments and inks which for me was like crazy because it makes so much sense but at the same time I wasn't aware of that.

Here you can see some pictures of the gums and the results I got from each one!!! This was the part I enjoyed the most!

The ratios used were:

  • For 400 ml of dye - 6 gr of Gum Guar
  • For 300 ml of dye - 4,5 gr Gum Arabic

RESULTS

EXPERIMENTS

After we finished doing everything I wanted to play around with the dyes and tie dye some pieces of fabric and this is what I got:

But the most important is to have fun and enjoy this while taking care of our world!!!

Important tip

Please weight everything first and keep documenting all you see, there is never enough pics or information, the most the better ;)