During the organizing of the Notjustnat Exhibition I hardly picked up any stitching. I did do some blog reading, specially the one on Eco Dyeing. I thought I would get back to try some more eco dyeing and this time with these dainty yellow flowers. These were the earlier spring flowers I gathered in the garden at my work. I think they are a type of weed. I'm not sure what they are. I looked up on Google image and they might be clover flowers. If you know exactly what they are please let me know.
I boiled up the flowers and didn't have time to use it for ages. Then I had to leave for Sydney and didn't want to waste the beautiful golden yellow liquid so I decided to put the liquid in a jar and refrigerated it while I was away in Sydney.
After returned from Sydney, I read on Kaite's blog about her coreopsis flowers yellow dyeing and remembered the jar of yellow liquid I had in the refrigerator! I used linen, cotton, silk and a piece of lacy fabric that I thought would not dye. I had nothing to lose in trying. I added a ball of pearl thread with small amount of alum. I tied some of the fabric and boiled it for about 30 minutes. I've left the saucepan out on the deck for a few days before I rinse it out.
These are how they turned out. The color is much deeper yellow than the photo, but somehow it didn't turned out well in the photo. I'm really really happy with this batch, I think the alum helps to set the dye onto the fabric and the colour didn't rinse off afterward.
Have you tried eco dyeing yet? I'm looking forward to our Christmas vacation on the South Coast near Seabird (our block of land). I'm planning to take my dye pot with me and do some experiment with what I might find there. It should be an interesting find...!
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