Dying With Seaweed

SEAWEED

Materials:

2 ml Japanese seaweed

1ml aluminum sodium sulfate

1-cup water

Silk

Procedure:

First I heated the water in a pot on a hot plate so that the water was very hot but not yet boiling. Then I placed the seaweed and mordant into the pot and let it soak for about twenty minutes. Then I added my silk sample and let it stay in the dye bath over night because it was not taking the color as well as expected.

Analysis:

After letting the silk sample sit in dye bath over night and rinsing it off the next day I saw that it turned the silk a nice shade of dark deep green that is almost a turquoise color. The dye stuck to the fabric great it just needed to sit with the dye for much much longer then my previous experiments.

Dying With Elder

ELDER

(3rd from the right)

Materials:

1/2 teaspoon elder

1/2-teaspoon aluminum sodium sulfate

2 cups water

Silk

Procedure: First I heated the elder dye with water on a hot plate so that it was very hot but not yet boiling. Then I added the mordant and mixed them. Then I added my silk sample and let it soak in the dye bath for about fifteen minutes before removing. Then I took it out and rinsed it off and placed a heavier type of silk and piece of cotton into the dye bath to see if I would get a varying result. Then I removed the two fiber samples from the dye after about ten minutes and rinsed them off.

Analysis:

Te first silk sample that was removed from the dye bath was a deep purple nearly violet color. Yet when I placed a heavier silk and cotton sample into the dye bath it turned the samples into a completely different color even though there were no changes made to the dye bath. I’m not sure why the color changed occurred, maybe the temperature of the hot plate changed and cooled slightly, or maybe it had to do with the fiber placed in the bath that only took the blue part of the purple color and not the red part of the pigmentation, but the three sample produced came out great and different.

Dying With Madder

MADDER

Materials:

1/2 teaspoon madder

1/4-teaspoon aluminum sodium sulfate

2 cups water

Silk

Procedure: First I heated water on a hot plate so that the temperature was hot but not yet boiling. Then I added the madder and mordant and mixed them together and let them heat up for about ten minutes. Then I placed my silk sample into the prepared dye bath and let it soak in there for about five minutes before removing it. Then I added another silk sample to the dye bath and let it soak in for about fifteen minutes to see if the dye would appear darker.

Analysis:

The first silk square removed form the dye bath after five minutes was orange, a light orange that did not fade at all when rinsing off. The second silk sample placed in the dye bath for three times longer then the first sample, appeared to be a much deeper and bolder color of orange then that first silk sample. I think possibly if you were to leave the silk in the heated dye bath for over a day the dye would be ultra strong and possibly turn the silk an orange red color.

Dying With Logwood

LOGWOOD

Materials:

2 tablespoons extract from logwood

¼ tablespoon aluminum sodium sulfate

2 cups water

Silk

Procedure:

First I heated the water on a hot plate so that it was hot but not yet boiling. Then I added the logwood and mordant to keep the dye to the fibers. Then after that I added my silk sample and let it sit in the dye bath for about ten minutes before removing. Once I pulled the silk sample out I rinsed it with cool water.

Analysis:

Once the silk was removed from the dye bath and then rinsed off it lost most of its color. The dye bath was complete lamp black, and it originally dyed the silk the same shade, but the more I rinsed the silk off, the more color it lost. After about a day of the silk being out of the dye bath and drying it lost nearly all of its color. I think another mordant should have been used like maybe tin or copper, but I did not know since initially the silk took the dye of logwood really well, it just faded drastically with time and oxidation.

Dying With Coffee

COFFEE

Materials:

½ cup hazelnut ground coffee

½ tablespoon aluminum sodium sulfate

2 cups water

Silk

Procedure: First I heated the water in a put on a hot plate so that it was really hot yet not yet boiling. Then I added the ground coffee and mordant and let it heat up for five minutes before adding the silk. Then I placed my silk square sample in the dye bah and let it soak for about ten minutes. Then I removed the silk and rinsed it off with cool water.

Analysis: The dye bath looked like a dark brown like the hazelnut ground coffee, but it dyed the silk a light brown color that almost looks green. Maybe if the silk was left in longer it would have been a darker brown, but for the five minutes it was in the dye bath, it turned a nice medium shade of brown.

Dying With Strawberries

STRAWBERRIES

Materials:

½ cup strawberries

½ tablespoon aluminum sodium sulfate

2 cups water

Silk

Procedure:

First I mashed up the strawberries then I placed them with water into a pot on a heated hot plate the was very hot but not yet boiling. Then I added the mordant. Then I placed my Silk sample into the dye bath and let it soak in there for about fifteen minutes. Then I pulled my silk sample out and rinsed in with cool water.

Analysis:

The dye bath appeared to be red, similar to the color of the outside of the strawberries, but on the silk it dyed it a light orange color not found in a strawberry really.

Dying With Blueberries

Materials:

½ cup blueberries

3 tablespoons aluminum sodium sulfate

2 cups water

Silk

Procedure:

First I mashed up the blueberries, and then I heated them in a pot full of water on a hot plate so they were very not but not yet boiling. Then I added a mordant so the dye would stick to the fibers. Then I dipped small squares of silk into the dye bath and let it soak for about ten minutes. When done,I pulled out the silk and rinsed it off.

Analysis:

I first noticed that the dye bath was purple, but when I pulled out my two types of silk I noticed that the color was different for both. On my thin silk the color dyed was purple, but on my heavier silk it dyed it a bright blue color.