Dyeing Naturally - Pomegranate & Beans

As I am continually going through

my stash; I find the urge to try

more echo dyed (naturally dyed) 

experiments.

It started with the Pomegranate

fabric that dyed back in 2010.

Which baffled the heck out me!

There were spots all over the 

fabric - I wrote about it here

It was one of my first experiments

and I promised myself to be more

precise and careful to take better

notes with other experiments.

I made a small purse out of that

fabric 

What I'm most concerned about is

the durability of the fabric color -

in other words the light fastness of

the colors over a period of time.

Will the colors fade or change over

a period of time.

The Pomegranate piece seems to have

not changed at all in 4 years. Good!

It was rewashed and ironed and still

stayed the same. I'll test other

pieces in the future.

But the one that really fascinated me

is the Black Beans - who knew? I

found a photo on Pinterest and thought

that I would try it. The color is 

supposed to turn out a pretty blue -

But it was on Wool yarn.

 I googled and found a couple of 

blogs describing how to dye with 

beans and followed the instructions

but my first batch came out a tannish

brown! boooo  Not what I was looking

for! I also found that a lot of

bloggers had different results.

Which made me think that there are

a lot of variables. 

The batch above - cotton fabric

soaked in alum and rinsed. 

Soaked beans for 12 hours and 

drained in another container and 

put the fabric in to soak - which

is what I read and it didn't work.

I'm using Goya brand beans and my

tap water which is hard water.

so .....

I used bottled water (Deer Park) in this

experiment and soaked the cotton fabric

first in vinegar. 

I didn't wait 12 hours; I put the fabric

in immediately and put the beans on top.

It worked better this way for me...Yes!

It does have the marks of the beans

but that's what I want to do - mark

fabric naturally!  It was drying 

in the sun. 

I washed the fabric and ironed it 

and it faded a little and changed colors. 

I was disappointed....

The top part is bluish and the bottom

is purplish ??

A couple of bloggers found that the 

beans are light sensitive. 

Anyway, I left the beans in the spring

water for 2 days and then added another

piece of fabric and DMC cotton thread..

all untreated (no alum or vinegar)

 As I read that the beans were

light sensitive; I decided to scrunch

the fabric and let it dry in the sun.

I like it! But the color is a greyish

purple (I don't think that the camera

picked up the colors that I see in person)

Like I said previously, there are too

many variables to the beans - so I

bought 2 more bags to try again.

The only black beans that I found so

far in stores around here are the Goya.

Happy quilting and dyeing!