Eco bundles and solar dyeing

When i told you about the solar dyeing in my last post, I did not talk about the bundles i made for the jars. In India Flints book she shows lots of beautiful samplers of eco bundles.

Some  leaves, i folded the fabric after placing the leaves, the print is a bit orange. 

In eco dyeing plants are enclosed in textile or paper , bundled by winding over branches , copper pipes, rusty nails, and then steamed or immersed in hot water, sometimes with plants, to extract the pigments and produce a print made with plant dyes.
You can use leaves,stems, flowers and seeds.
Lay the wet fabric on a flat surface and lay some flowers or leaves or whatever you want on the fabric. Roll the fabric around the branch to make a bundle.
I have put the bundles about two weeks in the jars, some jars were filled with dyeplants from my garden.
Then steam the bundles for two hours and then WAIT.
Eco dyers say: time is your friend. The longer you wait before opening the bundles, the deeper the color well be. But how difficult is that. I could only wait one week....

The bundles have been steamed.....

Waiting.

Eucalyptus leaves, the color is much more orange than on the picture.

oak leaf

eucalyptus leaves

onion skins

And of course there were some disappointed results. There are already new bundles in the jars. 

So the waiting begins...... 

It's so hot here and some solar dyeing

Already six weeks ago that i wrote a post on my blog! But weather is so hot here, sometimes too hot to do anything.
Last thursday we were inside for the whole day, too hot to be outside. French houses have thick walls and when you close the shutters, temperature inside is cool.

I also have some problems with my google account, I lost my cookies , so i have to sign in and sign in again and so on. That is the reason that i did not comment on your blogs! But i did read them, be sure of that! I will try to comment as an anonymous to let you know that i am still there.

But weather is perfect for some solar dyeing.
I bought India Flint's book about eco dyeing. A great book and so inspiring.
It is very simple: you fill a jar with some dyeing plants like tagetes,  onion skins or apple tree leaves.
You put some fabric that you mordanted with alum and water . Then let the sun do her work........

Inside this jar are flowers from hollyhocks, the dark, black ones.

Water with some vineyard. To modifie the color you can add also some nails or some copper coins.

onion skins

salvia leaves

Next time the results........