October 22, 2014

Kitchen Pantry Dyeing

This week's assignment for Slow Fashion Style, an online workshop by Katrina Rodabaugh, is Shibori dyeing with natural dyes. Our class tutorial features a dye made from spent coffee grounds. As I'm dyeing an already light brown linen, I'm experimenting with a mix of paprika and turmeric.
For my fabric, I disassembled a pair of thrifted, cropped linen pants that have never fit quite right. I really, really, really wanted to like this pair of pants because 1. they're linen and 2. they're well made and 3. they were something like $2.00 at Goodwill. Well, they were serving absolutely no purpose hanging in the dark closet. After cutting along the seams I was left with 4 panels of fabric. I'm thinking this linen will have a bright future as napkins.

After soaking the fabric panels in tap water overnight, I squeezed them out and folded them into bundles for dyeing. Because my tap water has a high iron content, I'm curious to see if it will act as a mordant. (Mordants are dyeing aids. Mordant binds to the fiber and then the dye binds to the mordant. Iron is a traditional mordant that also "saddens" or mutes colors.) 
I'm playing with two different folding and binding techniques. The square bundles traditionally are sandwiched between two pieces of wood. Instead, I fished a plastic lid out of the recycle bin and cut it into squares. And because I was having trouble tying the folded bundles of fabric with string, I used rubber bands saved from produce purchases.
And into the simmering dye pot. If the splatters on the stove top are any indication, the dye will turn out yellow to orange. How that will show up (or not) on my beige linen, I have no idea. Check in Friday for the results.

6 comments:

  1. oooh...I am eager to try this...looking forward to your results!!

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    1. Hi Deb! The results are... mixed. But it was great fun and has prompted a new interest. I want to learn more about (and try more!) nature dyeing.

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  2. I can't wait to see the results! I'm particularly interested in the spices and how they will turn out. It's almost time for me to check my coffee soaked fabrics!

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    1. Hi Jo! I look forward to your results with coffee. The spice results are mixed, but certainly interesting. I'll be posting about the dye effects later this morning.

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  3. I can completely understand your commitment to these pants. Linen! Oh heavenly, but if they were not comfortable and never worn I am so glad you have found another way to enjoy them. I was so intrigued by your dye combo here but am late in commenting so I cheated and already know the results :-) Will pop over to that post now...

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    1. Hi Xan,
      I was a little torn between using the pants for fabric or donating them back to the resale shop where I bought them. The first cut with the scissors was the hardest. But I'm glad I decided to repurpose the fabric... eventually.

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