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
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!
