Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Berry dyes


I went crazy over the weekend doing berry dye trials (Adam was out of town....). Instead of posting each berry separately, I'm condensing them into one post because it's nice to compare the colors.
far left Blackberry (Rubus): bright purple
center left Elderberry (Sambucus): berry red. It was even more red/orange-toned before rinsing in water.
center right Salal Berry (Gaultheria shallon): purple-blue
far right Twinberry (Lonicera involucrata): purple-grey. I also posted about twinberry here.
For each dye, I blended about 1 cup of berries with some water, strained the mixture and stored each dye trial in separate plastic containers. Then, I dissolved alum in hot water and added some to each container. I pre-wetted 100% cotton (from old sheets) and let it sit in the dye overnight. In the morning, I rinsed, dried (and need to iron) each piece of fabric.
I'm working on the embroidery part now, photos coming soon.
*Berry dyes may not be infinitely color-fast...but I don't mind :)

2 comments:

Margie Oomen said...

i love your berry experiments
thanks for the blog visit and lovely comment

Adam said...

I wasn't out of town for the rotting smell that these made :P