Experiment #426 Continued

Try, try, try again. . . 

Ok, so I wanted some more color on the cloak with copper and sepia dyes

It already looks like rust to me, so I thought I would give rust dyeing a try.

I laid the cloak out added found rusty objects and 

sprayed it down with a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water. 

I added salt in various places to hopefully speed up the process.

Next after spraying it down multiple times I realized that it was just too hot and the whole thing was drying out too fast. So I wadded everything up and crammed it into a tote. Covered it in the vinegar water solution for 2 days!!

Unfortunately, it didn't work. Part of me wonders if the cheep vinegar is already watered down. Next time I will use full strength brand name vinegar. 

 The second round of eco dyeing at least had some success.

The only thing that seemed to take well were the sapling Catawba leaves. There's a faint print from the asparagus leaves in one or two places, but nothing dark enough to show up well on camera. 

Eco Dyeing / Experiment #426 Fail

I was so excited when I woke up in the early morning full of energy! That doesn't happen very often these days. I went out and got the morning feeding done early, collected all of my supplies and set about giving eco dyeing another try. First I did some research using a book called North American Dye Plants. I've bookmarked everything I remembered seeing easily accessible to me, which was quite a lot actually. 

I believe these are called Cow Parsnip. 

I found a friend! Don't worry I put him/her back in their parsnip patch.

I think this is Bindweed, which resembles morning glories when in bloom. 

And last, asparagus fronds.

I laid everything out on half the cloak, then folded the second half over. It was so pretty and I was sure it would work this time. Then I rolled everything up into a long cylinder and again into a spiral. I tied it off with a synthetic cording and boiled the package in water and alum for 3 hours turning occasionally. Then I let it cool until I could comfortably unwrap it. 

Unfortunately what I gathered this morning and the mordant I used (alum) together seemed to not produce the best results. There was almost no color transfer over the entire cloak, even after boiling for 3 hours and letting cool to the touch. I couldn't even bring myself to take a final picture. 

I did bring the cloak inside and am soaking it overnight in soda ash. Maybe it will help, maybe it wont. I'm also going to try using iron as a mordant next.