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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Making My Mark on the Tree Cloths

After noticing Cedar stems left a print on cotton, I decided to make a dye with them. I collected windfall branches, cut them into small pieces....

...brought them to a boil, simmered for 2 hours then left the pot to cool overnight. I poured off the liquid as the 1st extraction and repeated the process twice more, making 2nd and 3rd extractions.

I dyed 2 sea-water, pre-mordanted cloths in the 1st extraction with a copper simultaneous-mordant. The cloth on the left had an ammonia post-mordant.

These 2 cloths had ash water pre-mordant with a copper simultaneous-mordant. The left hand cloth had an ammonia post-mordant. The results were a yellow-orange colour with the ammonia post-mordant shifting the colour more towards an orange. Interesting results but i wasn't enamoured with the colour. Even though the dye was made with material from the same tree that made the 1st stains, I couldn't see a connection between the two.

2 comments:

Judy Martin said...

It seems that you have gotten a strong colour.

Lesley Turner said...

Strong, yes but not attractive