Ecoprint with cotton: Let the boiling begin!

Now that discussed all aspects, let's start wrapping and boiling:

1. Put the mordanted and wrung cloth flat on a piece of plastic
2. Put a few leaves on the surface. Note: the back of the leaf gives the sharpest prints.

3. Put a second piece of fabric (or the other half) over the first piece.

4. Take a round wooden stick and roll the folded cloth tightly and evenly around it

5. Bind it all off with string - not too tightly and not too loosely.

6. Fill the kettle / pot with enough water to put the wrapped rolls under water and add 1 teaspoon of iron (II) sulphate.

7. Let the sticks slide into the pan and bring the water to boil slowly.

8. The color of the leaves is extracted by boiling vigorously for at least two hours.

9. Cool the pan and remove the rolls from the water letting them rest over night or even longer.

10 .Open up the wrapped poles and remove the leaves. Rinse well with cold water and wash them in warm water with a mild soap.

** Hint ** The dye pot has a long shelf life as well and is reusable until it is exhausted.

Next week, we will check possibilities with adding colour!

Ecoprint with cotton: the leaves

Now we're almost there, but we still have to discuss the most important part, which leaves to use!

Remember I said it's all about tannin boiling into the fabric which reacts with the iron (II) sulfate? So, we need leaves containing tannin. The most commonly known is oak leaf. Any type will do.

Another 'guaranteed to succeed' leaf is gardengeranium

Others are 'Alchemilla'

Peony

Rose, Spanish Maple and Blackberry:

Sweet chestnut leaf

Walnut leaf

So,  this list is just a shortlist of leaves that are succesfull in my dyepot. The leaves do not need to be dry or prepared in any way. Try the leaves from your own garden to see which will work for you! And don't forget to share your finds in the comments!!

Ecoprint with cotton: (pre)mordanting the fabric

As Cotton is a difficult fabric to get your leafprints on , we need to (pre)mordant the fabric.

Because most commercial fabrics have been starched or coated, it is always best to scour the fabric using a hot water wash or by soaking it a few hours or even a day or two in a bucket of water with a tablespoon of kitchen soda or soda-ash .

“Scouring” is the deep cleaning of fabric or fiber. Scouring helps assure even color and good penetration of the dye. Cotton, in particular needs scouring, even if it is brand new from the fabric shop because most commercial fabrics are coated with waxes and oils

After the removal of starch, the cotton fibers have to be prepared to allow the dye to bind. This pre-treatment is known as "Mordanting". The mordanting process also improves the light and color fastness, which is an issue with natural dyes as compared with synthetic dyes like Dylon or Procion MX. Mordants come in many varieties but most are not good for people or the environment. In the interest of environmental sustainability and our own health, we will work with alum, and/or soymilk only.

There are different possibilities for mordanting, I will share the ones I've tried. Please remember, there are many ways and stuff to use, I just share my own experiments, and I am still experimenting with other mordants too! There is not one perfect road, it is just 'trial, error AND succeed' at the same time.

Cotton, linen and ramie are composed of cellulose fibers. These fibers need a protein rich or alkaline solution as a mordant. Good results are achieved with a mixture of one tablespoon of alum and one tablespoon of soda per 3 liters of hot water or a mixture of 100 ml. soy milk and one tablespoon of soda in 3 liters of water. This solution has a long shelf life and is reusable! The fabrics should be soaked in this mordant solution for a few hours or up to few days.

Mordanting with iron (II) sulfate

You can place your fabric in a basket full of water and one or two teaspoons of alum, or, a cup of soymilk and leave it for a day. Afterwards, you can have a second mordant bath, which I often use, the Iron (II) sulfate (again one teaspoon in a basket of water). Remember, if the iron (II) sulfate is already in the fibre, it can easier start its printing process.

Oak galls

Another way to prepare your fabric in a natural way, is to soak the fabric in a tea, drawn from oak galls, with or without a teaspoon of iron (II) sulphate added.

Some people premordant the fabric again with alum after this second bath, but I never tried it as I am happy with the current results ;-). No rinsing of the fabric in between, just let it rest in the bath.

Leave if there until you are ready to start wrapping, wednesday we'll discuss the leaves and friday we start boiling!!

Ecoprint with cotton: the cotton

Before we start cooking, let's check the cotton used.

To understand the process, one thing we are especially looking for is 'tannin' in leafs, getting out of the leaf by boiling, onto the fabric, where it will react with iron (II) sulfate what will make a grey/black print.
This process can be influenced with many parameters, one of them being the cotton used.

We have a small problem:
a) the tighter the weave/thread, the sharper the print
b) the looser the weave/thread, the better the iron-sulfate penetration.

You see the problem?
Actually we are looking for two contrary characteristics in the same fabric!

Now, to share with you my own experience, I had great results with sateen cotton which is rather losely woven and gives a nice flat surface to print on.

A regular sheets cotton works great too, open weave, not the best quality of thread too.

But even a crisp poplin will work fine, but you have to pay more attention to pre-mordanting with iron (II) sulfate and wrap it more losely around the pole.

It can be purely white, but also a light colour will do, I had good results with this bluish percale cotton (also used for sheets):

To the left the perkal cotton, to the right the regular sheet cotton:

Another possibility is to use a 'batiste', due to its open weave, you can use larger pieces of fabric to roll around your pole like a scarf!

So you see, many possibilities to play with! Check the density of your cotton and adapt the process to that: sometimes choose to wrap less fabric in order to have less layers. Or soak the fabric in a bucket of water with a teaspoon of iron sulphate (makes the fabric more gray), or  rub the leaves with an iron (II ) sulfate solution before placing them on the fabric. Or as I mentioned, wrap it more losely.

Check your stash, monday we will discuss (pre) mordanting the fabric.

Ecoprint: poles and kettle

As a lot of people experience difficulty with the final results, I want to discuss all materials with you before we get started.
Today we're gonna check the poles and kettle needed for ecoprint.
First of all, any pole which can stand the heat will do ;-). The thicker, the better.
Remember, we are going to wind the fabric around the pole. If it is too thin, too many layers of fabric will prevent the ironsulfate and the heat to get to the innerside.

Wooden pools from a broom work fine, please let them soak for a few days to get them heavy. You might even soak them in iron sulfate (causing the black colour) so you have a inner source of iron to bring to your fabric when boiling.

Branches with or without bark also work fine, providing a more natural and rough result.
The tannin in the bark will also play a role in the process.

Square bars will also work but you will notice the side fold, especially if the bars keep floating in the kettle.

You can see the bar-stripes here clearly:

We really need to boil our leafs into the fabric for 2 to 3 hours, so, find a pot/kettle for this special purpose as you cannot use it afterwards for food-cooking!!!

I use a 'weckkettle' (don't know how it is called in english), which has a thermostat, useful when it has to cook for 1 or 2 hours.

Ofcourse a rice cooker will do as well but it is very small. And any other big pot on the fire will do, like this old copperpot:

 Actually any pot will do but it is hard to control the permanent cooking in a regular pot:
(A kitchen full of smoke made my husband decide to ban me permanently from the kitchen ;-). That's were the 'weckkettle' came in.

Friday we will discuss types of cotton. In the meantime let your poles get saturated by water.

Ecoprint with cotton: materials

Cotton, the most commonly used fabric for quilters, is not the easiest material to dye using natural dyes. Results are subtle and the process is complicated, and relatively little information can be found on the web about dyeing of cotton. So, we need some preparations to make before we can get started.

These are the materials we need this month:

Supplies:

• 100% Cotton, pieces of 25 x 50 cm (10 x 20 inches)

• Round wood or iron poles of 20 cm (7,5 inch). You can cut a broomstick or dowel in pieces. A thick branch will do too.

• Cotton yarn for binding

• Iron (II) sulfate 

• Soda ash

• Soy milk or Alum

• Leaves

• Boiler/Kettle/pot (one dedicated for art use!)

• Vinyl Gloves

The most difficult to obtain might be the iron (II) sulfate. In the Netherlands we have a moss-remover for the garden which consists of 95% iron (II) sulfate, called 'Tegen mos'. But not all moss-removers are iron sulfate so please check the label. In case you really can't find it, try to make your own iron-water by soaking old rusty iron pieces (or ferruginous fossils) in a plain water bath.

Works more or less, but I prefer the iron (II) sulfate powder of which you only need a teaspoon per session.

The Soy milk can be bought ready made, but can also be made yourself, here you will find a perfect recipe:

http://www.johnmarshall.to/H-Soymilk.htm

No need to collect leaves on forehand. They are most easily used when fresh.

Wednesday we will discuss poles and kettles.

New month: Ecoprint with cotton

That was a very exciting month of Using silk screens, thank you Maggi Birchenough!!!
A new month arrived so we start with a new topic: Ecoprint on cotton. Ecoprint in 'printing leafs on fabric with help of a mordant'.

There are many tutorials on the web for ecoprint on wool or silk, the easier fiber to print on.
But, I find a special challenge in printing on cotton, not the least because I love to use these in artquilts or pojagi, so let's see where this month of experimenting will bring us!

I will post monday, wednesday and friday. And will share all I discovered, the good and the less-good ;-). Above all, will try to keep it as environmental friendly as possible.
Welcome to join me this month!

PS. I am dutch so please excuse me on forehand if english is not correct. And there might be a difference in trees and plants between our countries. Still, we have quite a few in common as well ;-) being the hardest part to find the english word for it. You can help me out if you know a more common name in the comments!