My birch bark dye experiment didn’t result in pink. I got a rather pale, warm, gold-ish parchment color. (Birchment?) I like it. I’m sure there are so many variables with plant dyeing, not the least of which is my inexperience dyeing with raw plants. The age of the tree (old in this case), soil, mordants, dirt, temperature of the water, time, etc. The silk organza at the top of the photo took on the most color. The linen on the right took on the least. These will ultimately be over-dyed.
top-silk organza, right-old linen damask, left-silk broadcloth
I washed the paste out of my rabbit design yesterday . Here’s a peek.
rabbits, sans paste
Your rabbits look great. I am following your progress with great intent.
I am also learning to dye naturally as well as with stencils and rice paste
thank you — good to hear you are exploring these materials!
Hurray!
I too have been eagerly awaiting the rabbits revealed!
They’re wonderful, the repeat is wonderful, and I just can’t stop thinking about “Watership Down” when I look at them.
This is a pattern that I hope shows up in your shop in some form or another…….. I’d love some straight yardage of this…………….
.-= Deb´s last blog ..Whole House =-.
hi Deb — glad you like the design! Here’s the deal with my shop. This summer I’m participating in some art fairs in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, so I’m hoarding my inventory in advance of these fairs. Look for my online shop to grow throughout the fall. I’m intrigued that yardage is something you would like. We should start an email conversation about this … I’m always interested in hearing ideas from my audience!
Yay! I can almost hear them chomping those crisp leaves :) The moon and the scale add a bit of mystery… I love the design and also how it looks like a woodblock print.
oh these are marvelous!
thanks, Eva and Jude!
Found you on purpose – you’re also at the yahoo-naturaldyeing? Your blog is interesting, have to read more. Thanks for sharing
Hi Dorie; thanks for visiting… I might be on Yahoo — not sure! If so I am not a very active participant at the moment. If it’s a Flickr group I might have just joined it … trying to figure out how many of these groups i can really participate in!
Ooh rice paste, I’ve got to check that out- looks great! What did you mordant the cotton with? I’ve not tried cotton fabric yet but I’ve got good results on cotton yarn using tannin and alum mordants, let me know if you want recipes :-)
Lx
My fibers were silk and linen, I mordanted the linen with alum, I think. The color is very pale as you can see. Thanks for the visit!