Dyeing with Flowers Part One
When dreaming up a name for my business I kept coming back to the word “folk”. For me it had so many lovely connotations, but one thing I love is the history of “folk-craft”—a type of art and craft that is passed down through oral tradition or demonstration, and is often handmade. I am not a trained farmer or gardener or florist. Everything I know up until now came to me through through members of my community and the vast web of people online so generously sharing their knowledge.
If you’re familiar with my former art business, Here Studio, you’ll know that I have experience with textile dyeing. So when I started growing flowers, my mind was spinning with the potential of working with them on dye projects. In the past I’ve worked with fiber-reactive powder dyes that are fairly predictable and concentrated. However, I am excited at the idea of dyeing with flowers because of it’s directness and the organic and surprising nature of the results.
I found an old book from the 90’s called A Dyer’s Garden by Rita Buchanan that has been a great resource. It covers garden planning and shows some results you can get from a variety of plant species using different mordants.
Speaking of mordants—this is one big difference between using fiber-reactive dyes and natural plant dyes. I’ve never worked with a mordant before and felt a bit intimidated by the idea. It seems there are endless opinions on the topic, some of which get pretty technical and involved. Ultimately I ended up following this tutorial by Maura Ambrose, whose simple, non-fussy approach seemed more my style. With plant dyeing, the organic and imperfect nature is a part of the beauty the aesthetic I’m drawn to.
Since I’ll be dying mostly linen and cotton, I ordered an alum acetate mordant as was recommended in the notes section of Maura’s tutorial. I pretty much followed her directions to a tee. One big note I’d add if you’re using the alum acetate that I linked above—do it outside and wear a mask! It is a super fine powder that turns into cloud of dust as soon as the jar is opened. I learned this the hard way in my kitchen and inhaled more of it than is probably healthy.
I weighed out my fabric and moved my alum bath outside where I let it soak overnight. This morning I hung a clothes line outside our tiny alley house and let the wet cloth dry in the sunny breeze. Isn’t there something so romantic about an old-school clothes line? And with that, the mordant process is now complete. I’ll write another little post and share some photos once I do the dye day.
XO,
Abigael