22
May
Eucalyptus bark dyed silk
Eucalyptus bark peelings collected from Hillier grounds.
Eucalyptus Dye Bath Preparation
Break up bark and leave to soak for a day or overnight, even several days may release more colour. I added 3 leaves to ensure a colour result (as dye instruction books use leaves for strong result).
Heat to boil, then simmered for 1hr-1hr 30mins until a depth of colour absorbed. (Its always a good idea to leave dye stuff to soak over night and reboil dye liquid again the next day if colour is not very strong, before adding fabric again).
Remove bark from pan and leave liquid to cool to just hand hot, before adding silk. (Silk can go rough if exposed to boiling temperature).
It wasn’t necessary to-heat the dye bath again to obtain more colour, as the silk took up the dye well immediately, and quickly grew darker. After about an hour of soaking, frequently moving around, I removed silk, heated the dye bath again for about 10 mins and again left it to cool before soaking additional lace pieces.
Lace (content unknown; likely cotton/polyester mix) which appeared to rapidly take up the dye, although it was not pre-mordanted, as the silk was.
To make any gold duller, soak in a modified dye bath. Use either rusty nail water, or powdered iron.
Top silk and lace were modified with iron water in final dye bath; compared to initial dye bath underneath.
Habotai Silk Dyed Samples In sunlight the golden brightness is amazing. The one duller piece was modified after dyeing, in iron water soak, which turned duller. Click images for full screen Gallery.
Dyed Silk and Coordinate fabrics
Eucalyptus dyed gold silk, with silk painting, was used for collar and some patches of Kimono Dress Tasmanian Blues