Louie

FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2011

 For some reason, I didn't get any photos today, so I thought I'd show more of our leaf dye experiments. We went out in the garden and picked leaves and flowers that we thought might release some color. Here are roses and a bloodroot leaf.

 We laid them out on mordanted silk, then rolled or folded them tightly, tyeing them snuggly.

 The bundles were steamed for about an hour.

 You can already see some color after the steam bath.

 The greatest fun was unrolling the bundles to see what we got! We also had powdered indigo, logwood and cochineal, which we had sprinkled over the silk.

 A dark purple from red leaves and indigo spots.

 A yellow from the leaves of a yellow flower, red from the cochineal.

I don't remember what I put in this one, but the purple is from the logwood . . .