Solar dyeing is a dye technique which involves very little. Its a good way to dye scraps of fabric and threads for further use. After stuffing the fabrics – I put leaves in some of them as well – into old glass jars I poured some leftover dye liquids in: black tea, onion skin liquid, soaked eucalyptus bark liquid and marigold liquid from last year. I also layered some liquids on top of each other to achieve blended colours.
dyestuff and yarns
placed in jars, there is some prickle leftover which may affects the outcome
filled up with dyestuff
sitting on the window sill and waiting for the sun to come out. The hardest thing is to forget about them, they need to stay in the sun at least till after x mas
Freshly picked kowhai flowers
Soaked in water for a couple of days
Because of the strange smell I did the boiling and dyeing outside.
Samples with alum as mordant, not very bright although I like the shades which can give a beautiful subtlety on silks.
Samples dyed with a piece of copper plate, not much different from the alum mordant samples.
Samples with iron as mordant, almost a taupe shade. Quite a bit disappointing as I expected much stronger colours but there are some nice shades among them.