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.

Image reference

Tools¶

Pots
Measuring cups
Spoons
Silicone Spatula
Scale
Bowls
Containers
Tape
Marker

PROCESS¶

GET THE SOURCES!¶

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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.

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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)

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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

Ingredients & Recipes¶

Prepare this recipe ¹ by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredients

xxx gr madder root
xxx gr alum
xxx gr fabric
xxx ml xxx
xxx gr xxx

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Blue sky¶

recipe mallow dye on protein and cellulose fibers

measure
add
simmer
mix
remove
strain
repeat

Documenting experiments¶

TESTS¶

Source name	Total Weight (g)	Mordant	Color
Cabbage	1515.4	None	Light purple
Cabbage	1515.4	Iron	Dark blue
Cabbage	1515.4	Alum	Dark purple
Cabbage	1515.4	Papaya	Violet
Cabbage	1515.4	Lemon	Pink
Cabbage	1515.4	Lemons & 2 gr Sodium Carbonate	Dark pink
Cabbage	1515.4	2 gr Alum & tbsp vinegar	Vibrant purple
Lavender	1796	None	Light brwon
Lavender	1796	Iron	Dark brown
Lavender	1796	Alum	Beige
Onion (white)	9.8	None	Reddish brown
Onion (white)	9.8	Iron	Dark brown
Onion (white)	9.8	Alum	Bright yellow
Spinach	NI	None	Very light green
Spincah	NI	Iron	Very light green
Spinach	NI	Alum	Very light green
Pomegranate	NI	None	Light yellow
Pomegranate	NI	Iron	Dark brown
Pomegranate	NI	Alum	Brownish yellow
Beans	1000	None	Blue
Beans	1000	Iron	Dark navy blue
Beans	1000	Alum	Purplish blue
Spirulina	NI	None	Green with some dark spots
Spirulina	NI	Iron	Dark green
Spirulina	NI	Alum	Light green with darker spots
Bark	NI	Iron	Light brown
Bark	NI	Alum	Light yellow
Campeche	50	None
Campeche	50	Alum
Campeche	50	Iron

RESULTS¶

Two ways of showcasing and comparing results with images below

On the left an image of a sample made by xxx with xxx. The dye is more xxx. On the right, an image of a sample made by xxx with xxx and xxx. Here the dye is more xxx.

RESULTS¶

Recycling the dye into pigments¶

Ingredients & Recipes¶

Prepare this recipe ¹ by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredients

xxx gr madder root
xxx gr alum
xxx gr fabric
xxx ml xxx
xxx gr xxx

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

pink pigment¶

pigment from left-over dye bath

measure
add
simmer
mix
remove
strain
repeat

RESULTS¶

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Recipes¶

recipe: banana indigo ↩↩