Experiment with Ecodyeing

I found out recently that you can get colour and even leaf prints on fabric by putting actual leaves in layers of fabric and immersing them in water, so I thought I'd try it.

I also put petals in with the leaves to see what would happen and a few rusty nails.

Sandwiching them between cotton fabrics, I rolled them up and tied them with string.

I put the bundles in my pot with loose leaves floating about in the water and simmered them for about an hour, then fished them out and left them still rolled up for two days. (I went to find something else to do while waiting. There's lots to keep me occupied! 😉 )

When I untied them, I left them to dry. This is what I ended up with:

There is colour on the fabric but no actual leaf prints, not even vague ones. I was a little bit disappointed 😞 but it was only an experiment. In the past I would have seen this as a failure and got really annoyed about it, possibly abandoning the whole thing, but now I see it just as a try out to see what effects I could get, a chance to learn and adapt my process. This may be due to the fact that I discovered Mindfulness a few years ago and I've been trying to practise it. It does seem to help to alter your outlook and has helped me when I've had setbacks in my work. 😌

I quite like the effects on the fabric but I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet. I may re-use the fabric to try dyeing it again with more leaves. When I did this, some of the leaves were quite dry. Maybe I should have used really fresh ones and maybe I should also use a different method of keeping the fabric in a bundle, to make sure the leaves are really tight against the fabric.

I'll see what happens with further experiments and update you on the results. 😊