Here are the results of last weekend's eco dye brew. I'd been given a piece of silk/wool blend, and I recently purchased several yards of silk fabric, so my intention with this batch was to see whether I could get a more orange color from my local eucalypts. I didn't. So now I'm even more certain that it's the euc species in my area and not anything else I'm doing...since I've tried about everything I can think of, all combinations of methods, fabric, etc. in an attempt to achieve natural orange.
Anyhow, the first two images are the silk/wool fabric with the same leaves. The top piece was wrapped around a rusty tin can, and one below around an aluminum pipe. I do love what the aluminum did and yes, there's a bit of orange on the fabric, from tiny euc berries.
The next two pieces are crepe de chine ~ the first with leaves from a different euc, and second with my tried and true oak leaves. The bottom one was wrapped on a rusty pipe. It was only a few days ago but I can't remember what the one just below was wrapped on. It'll likely come to mind soon as I publish the post. These are two beautiful pieces of fabric, but no significant difference from prints I've gotten with the same materials on linen fabric.
The last two pieces were larks ~ overdyes on earlier work. The first piece, old linen, was wrapped in a big rusty mattress spring. Wrapped around and stuffed inside.
The last piece is old cotton with rusty nails wrapped up inside. No additional plant material.
There is one more thing I want to try with my local eucalypts before I quit trying to get orange from them. I'll premordant silk fabric with soy milk and wrap the bundle around a copper pipe. I'll have additional copper and alum in the bath, but no rust. At any rate, this won't happen for a bit yet, as I'm off onto some other dyeing adventures in the near future.
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