Eco Printing

Last week before we headed off to the Southwest Spinners Retreat, my cohort in crime - Betty and I did some dyeing with leaves from our yards, iron pipe and coffee grounds. We used silk and cotton muslin to make our bundles a la India Fint in her wonderful books, Ecocolor and Second Skin. See India's blog link in the blogs listed on the right. Everything she does is an inspiration. This time Betty and I mordanted our cloth with soy milk instead of alum and cream of tarter. Glenna Dean in the Turkey Red Journal also recommends this mordant to keep indigo from crocking (that is another story). So far soy milk is my mordant of choice although it does not keep well after the first day's use. I found that overnight it spoiled and tended  to separate in the bucket. However, since nothing toxic was added to it I put it in with the rest of the compost and recycled it. We steamed our bundles for about an hour and then left them for a couple of days. When we met up for the retreat in the mtns, we unrolled them and had a good look.

 The eucalyptus gave the nice orange color on silk and the black is from the iron pipe.

 Fig leaves and indigo fresh from the yard gave much lighter impressions and the idigo was only blue when there was no iron near it.

The wonderful Betty who is like a guardian angel to me. She and her husband Gary helped me load and unload, set up for class and kept an eye on my table when I needed to get away. They even followed me home to make sure my truck made it up the last hill. Thank you Betty and Gary. 

The retreat was a great experience. Lots of wonderful spinners and people who wanted to learn to spin. It was such a treat to get out of the heat and see green trees. It even rained on Friday up in the Sacramento mtns. We were at the Methodist Assembly Camp in Sacramento NM.