Natural dyeing

Dyeing with nettles.

First off I just need to make clear that green is one of the hardest colours to create naturally. Which makes no real sense , as green is the base colour of nature, you would think its the easiest to make. But the problem is it has a huge tendancy to go grey or brown or another dull colour when boiled into a dye. So unless you want to sit and rub grass on it for hours (full dislosure I have tried this and not fun) you need to find a way around it.

Previously when naturally dyeing last year I managed to create green by first creating a purple with blackberries and then boiling it in baking soda to alter its acidity. I have tried to re create this magic but sadly I didn't make note of the specifics and haven't managed it since - but feel free to try it, dyeing is all about experimenting for yourself, just rememeber to take notes!

the dyeing process

Before you can think about dyeing your fabric it is important to mordant it. You can skip this step if you want but your results will vary, they could be patchy, pale or wash out if the fabric is washed.

1) WASHING THE FABRIC

Before I do anything I always wash the fabric first, as it could shrink change texture colour and it breaks the fibres a bit so it's more receptive to dye

2) MORDANTING THE FABRIC

There are many professional ways to mordant fabric, many of these ways involve non vegan chemicals or chemicals that are bad for the planet so I chose the soya milk way. I learnt this process, as well as lots of other processes involving natural dye, from Rebecca Desnos whos book on natural dye is 100% worth buying if you are interested in vegan ways of doing it.

First I prepped the fabric by washing it then, whilst it was still damp, I used string to tie it into balls. If you want a more even colour skip this step as what it does is create an uneven absorbtion of the mordant which means when its dyed it creates a pattern, which i wanted for this project.

Then I created a bath out of a mixture of soya milk and water so there would be enough to just cover the fabric.

I then put the fabric in so it was fully absorbed and covered it for 12 hours stirring ocassionaly.

Finally, after 12 hours, I put it on a spin cycle in the washing machine and then hung it up to dry.

3) DYEING THE FABRIC

After mordanting it is important to leave it for a while so it sticks to the fibres better. In the past I have left it from 24 hours to a week so experiment see what works best for you. This time I waited a week and then started the process of dyeing.

Before I can dye all 21 meters of my muslin I first needed to experiment with creating the right dye. I had previously experimented with just nettle dyeing in October 2019 as you can see from the first picture below, most of them created a grey colour. However I had read that nettles create different colours at different times of the year so in February 2020 I started again and it produced the fourth picture along which is even more grey so I knew I needed to try something else.

After seeing some peoples success with spirulina powder in creating green I decided to experiment with this and amazingly it created some beautiful green shades. I then played around with adding nettles to the pot which made a darker green - but as i am planning on having two layers of my dress I decided to dye 10.5 meters with just spirulina and 10.5 with spirulina and nettles

CREATING THE DYE

So I experimented with amounts, a lot, and it came down to 1 tbsp of Spirulina per Cup of filtered water worked the best. You can use unflitered water, but I got stronger brighter colours when using filtered.

I then boiled the water, added the spirulina and boiled it down for an hour.

Then i wet the fabric in a box I had handy and poured over the dye and left it to soak for around 10 hours. This created the colour you can see in the last picture.

However after leaving it for a couple of days to bind, I then went to rinse it out as spirulina smells - a lot. When i rinsed it out it faded to a darker grey. So learning from this I repeated the process but instead of boiling it with spirulina I simply mixed it with boiling water as this created lighter colours in my experiments. Then I rinsed it a bit whilst it was drying and this worked better as it kept the green and lost some of the smell. Whilst it was damp i soaked it in a lemon and water spray and this got rid of the rest of the smell.

However in normal dyeing circumstances washing it immediately is a big no no as the dye has had no time to bond with the fabric. This is just what worked for me on this occasion.

#costumedesign #costumefabric #fabric #nature #naturaldye #nettles #green