Eureka
I stumbled upon something ‘new’ quite by accident. I had seen already beautiful results of people using fresh indigo on silk and I was mesmerised by the shade. But I have never been able to grow sufficient indigo in my balcony planters to give this a go.
Then I found something while purchasing some henna.
It seems people are using this as a dye for hair, but I had never tried that myself.
Hair = protein, so why should it not be able to dye with this on textiles?
My first tries where just to boil the powder which gave me gorgeous greenish tans. A little post mordanting with 1%wof ferrous sulphate made the colours even more intense.
Then I discovered something completely different which required no heating and almost no water in less than 30 minutes.
No heating and no water, and less than 30 minutes you read that correctly.
I can dye a 55 by 200 cm scarf with around 2 litres of water only, and no heating besides running the water kettle once.
The results are stunning. Look at those tantalising colours!
The colours range from green to blue and turquoise depending very very much on which fabrics you use.
Crazy?
No. And the best thing; you can do the same with henna. And with madder powder, and turmeric…and…. the possibilities are endless! I am calling this way of dyeing Low Impact Dyeing and I will explore this in depth in my aim to use natural dyes with minimum water.
How?
The short version; just mix powder with water and scrunch your fabrics in the dye paste well.
Different dyes may need different lengths of time soaking up the pigments. The green indigo works really fast and gives blues within 5 minutes, Henna loves to sit around longer.
Rinse and dry and PRESTO.
סוזמנ דקל אקו פרינט וצבעים טביעים