Dyeing With Black Cherries

Hiromi's latest natural dye experiment is with black cherries that were harvested earlier in the year and kept frozen.

The natural fibre materials used in this experiment are pictured in the photo below, they are a silk handkercheif, felted wool, hempcotton blended yarn and hempwool blended yarn.

Like all the other dyestuffs she uses, the cherries were boiled up to extract as much colour as possible and also with just enough water to stop the dyestuff from burning. If dyeing anything in volume, plenty of water would have been more suitable to create the dyebath.

You will notice that the cherry stones haven't been removed prior to boiling, this was unintentional! We recommend the removal of the stones as it will make it easier to break up the cherries while boiling them, but allowing the stones to boil with the fruit colours them nicely if you intend to use them for beads.

The image below shows the final results from the dyeing experiment. The background is the silk handkerchief that has been tie-dyed and of the two yarns, hempwool is on the left and hempcotton is on the right. The hempcotton seems to have taken less colour, probably due to both hemp and cotton being cellulose fibres. The protein fibres of wool and silk always seem to beautifully take natural dye colours.

One point that we would like to mention is that dyes from blackberries and elderberries are generally considered as stains rather than dyes as even with the use of fixative, the colour's longevity in limited. We think cherries may be similar in this respect.

For information about other dyestuffs that we have experimented with, click on any of the links below to be taken to  the corresponding blog entry.

Beetroot

Betel Nut

Blackberry

Lily Pollen

Maharangi

Nettle

Onion Skins

Red Cabbage

Tea Leaves

Natural fibres, Natural dyes and Original designs http://www.sorazora.com/

DYEING WITH MAHARANGI

I want to use today's blog to introduce a dyestuff that we are including in this year's collection. Maharangi (Nepalese name) is mainly harvested from the wild for its use in herbal medicine, but we are more interested in the colour it yields. Maharanga Emodi (accepted name in international pharmacology) affords a dye from the root which has been used for centuries for colouring wool & silk. As a medicine, both the roots and flower are used.

The plants are distributed in the alpine Himalayas of Nepal from 3000m to 3900m, it is also found from Garhwal to Bhutan at altitudes of 3500m to 4000m.

Above is a photo of the raw material in root form and also in powder. It requires powdering before boiling and steeping as this helps extract the maximum of colour.

The photo below shows the colour on alum mordanted wool, silk and felt.

Although the colour is beautifully subtle, it was not as we had expected and can obtain very similar colours from other less expensive dyestuffs. It is a dye that we will include for wool and felt, but not silk, hemp or cotton.

Padamchal (Himalayan Rhubarb) is one of our favourite dyes for the strong mustard yellow it produces. The photo below shows an over-dye experiment on silk. The top shawl has been dyed with Padamchal. The middle shawl has been dyed with Maharangi and then over-dyed with Padamchal. The bottom shawl has been dyed with only Maharangi.

Natural fibres, Natural dyes and Original designs http://www.sorazora.com/

Natural Dye Silk Shawls

Today's product upload are these loose weave shawls made from raw silk (untreated silk).
All of our beautifully soft silk shawls have been dyed using a variety of natural soothing colours to compliment almost any outfit. The more these shawls are worn, the softer they become.

For more details about these shawls, click here!

These are a selection from the many dyes that we use. Many new colours are achieved by overdyeing and all our silk shawls are dyed by us here in the UK and all mordanted with alum. Until now, just a few colours were available online with a broader selection available in our shop. We are now happy to be able to make one of our most popular items available online.

Madder & Elderberry / Elderberry

Myrobalan & Indigo / Himalayan Rhubarb & Elderberry

Onion Skin / Himalayan Rhubarb / Walnut Husk

Madder (deep) / Madder (pale)

Natural fibres, Natural dyes and Original designs http://www.sorazora.com/

Kakishibu

Kakishibu is the fermented juice of unripe astringent persimmons. Its brown colour comes from its tannin molecules. Apart from its beautiful colour, it is known for its strengthening, antibacterial & waterproofing qualities.

Kakishibu has been widely used in Asia (Japan, China & Korea) through history. In a more eco-aware society, kakishibu should be enjoying a revival as it is a completely natural colouring for anything from textiles to wood or paper. It can be used in immersion dyeing on fabrics or equally well being applied to a fabric's surface by brush.

I have experimented with kakishibu and discovered its beautiful effect on a hemp-cotton t-shirt that had been dyed with woad (indigo). The depth of the brown depends on the number of layers applied by brush. This slow build up of dark brown allows it to be used for working with different tones. For the lizard design, I chose to stay with the same depth of colour for the entire design.

Natural fibres, Natural dyes and Original designs http://www.sorazora.com/

Dyeing With Onion Skins

After many months of drying out and keeping all our unwanted onion skins, today we were rewarded with a new colour for our collection.

Using 100% raw silk shawls that had been mordanted with alum, we produced a beautiful golden yellow. Although we had expected this colour, we are very pleased with the results.

The colour produced contrasts well with the green that can be achieved using red onion skins and the blue from red cabbage.

One possible experiment for the near future would be overdyeing this golden yellow with indigo to produce various greens.

Natural fibres, Natural dyes and Original designs http://www.sorazora.com/

Hempwool To Dye For!

During our three month production period in Kathmandu, many trips to Lagnakeil were made to visit a workshop run by a dyeing and weaving master. Kiran has a solid understanding of the chemical reactions required for successful natural dyeing and is always experimenting new methods. He has a small facility for dyeing at his home and just a short walk away is his hand weaving factory, which is full of Jacquard looms and more simpler hand looms. What makes our working relationship a real pleasure are his keenness to explain in detail what can be achieved with various dyestuffs and mordants and his environmental beliefs. His work requires little electricity and is therefore not at the mercy of load shedding. (Load Shedding is the name for the scheduled power cuts which are common place all year round in Nepal.) Just a few low wattage light bulbs provide ample lighting in his weaving factory and an electric iron for pressing fabrics after washing, everything else requires good old fashioned manpower.

Kiran is the man behind our naturally dyed hemp wool (and hand weaving) and this year we were welcome to oversee his work and ask as many questions as we liked.
One difference between production last year and this year is the absence of the mordant copper sulphate. This strong chemical mordant was previously used when dying with cutch wood, but we opted for a different shade with the use of alum as a mordant. Copper sulphate will no longer be used by us in the production of any natural dyes. In terms of dyestuffs, we stuck with the usual suspects listed in the table below.

Our hempwool is a mix of 50% hemp and 50% New Zealand wool, the hemp provides durability to the yarn and a slightly coarser feel which we appreciate. We provide Kiran with undyed hanks of hempwool and it remains in a hank through the whole dyeing process. Dyestuffs are steeped whilst mordanting (with either alum or iron sulphate) is carried out ready for next day dyeing. Kiran takes great care and no short cuts in his work, if he feels a yarn would benefit from double dyeing then double dyed it will be. Double dyeing involves another dip in the mordant solution before entering the dye bath for a second time.
All pots and baths are made from copper, as aluminium can have an adverse effect on the finished results. The heating of dye baths and mordant baths is usually through firewood or a kerosene stove, "Having the option is important as here in Nepal you cannot rely on regular supplies of kerosene at a reasonable price," explains Kiran.

Upon completion, the hanks are returned to our hemp wool supplier where the hanks will be converted into 100gm balls and the labels we supply will be attached to each ball.

Our 100gm hempwool balls knit and crochet beautifully. Below is a sample crochet blanket that was created by Hiromi. As you can see, all the natural colours complement each other. As the blanket was crocheted using double yarn, it was possible to experiment further by using two different colours.

Natural fibres, Natural dyes and Original designs http://www.sorazora.com/

NATURAL DYEING WITH TEA LEAVES

Tea is probably one of the most readily available dyestuffs and one that we have used several times in the past.. Tea contains tannin, which stains and colours giving good lightfast properties. We used alum as a mordant on these raw silk shawls, using 10% of the fabrics weight to gauge the amount of alum required. For this experiment we used enough tea leaves to match the weight of the fabric. Different quantities of tea can be used to adjust the strength of the dyebath. Pictured below are our results from a recent dyebath.

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NATURAL DYEING WITH RED ONIONS

Our most recent experiment with natural dyes was with red onion skins. We know that onion skins produce a strong yellow, but wondered what the results would be with red onions.
I assume that these onions contain a pigment called anthocyanin which can also be found in red cabbage and beetroot. This assumption was proved correct with the resulting colour. The blue colour of anthocyanin mixed with the yellow pigment that also exists in regular onions provides a beautiful kharki. We have yet to try regular onions, but suspect that they will form the base of our next experiment.
The images below show both the boiling stage and finished results on a raw silk shawl.

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Thread Dyeing Advantages

This year saw Sorazora's introduction to thread dyeing. Previously we had been fabric dyeing with natural dyes, which lead to a small percentage of damaged material due to uneven colouring. Thread dyeing significantly reduces this kind of damage and produces a more even shade throughout the fabric after hand weaving. One other advantage is the effect gained through weaving different coloured threads within a single fabric. Our hemp cotton shawls, pictured below, illustrate the beauty of the various dyestuffs used.

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NATURAL DYEING WITH LILY POLLEN

A current experiment with natural dyes involves using lily pollen. I have tried with a very small quantity of pollen used to colour hemp wool. The final colour was indeed a bright yellow, but the colour was fairly uneven. I am not sure if this uneven colour was the result of not using enough pollen for the amount of hemp wool or just the nature of this dyestuff. I will experiment again in the near future with a larger amount of pollen. Collecting the pollen from lilies is rather time consuming so I imagine the next experiment will also be on either a small garment (i.e. silk shawl) or hemp wool.

BATIK

Batik is something that we are very new to doing at Sorazora.

The name batik comes from the method (originally used in Java) of producing coloured designs on textiles by dyeing them, having first applied wax to the parts to be left undyed. This process can also be refered to as wax-resist dyeing.

I have been using only beeswax whereas many use a blend of beeswax and paraffin wax. Paraffin wax is fairly brittle and produces a lot of crackle. This crackle, either intentional or not, can be reduced by adding the much softer and more pliable beeswax.

There are a few methods for removing the wax after the dyeing process. Because of the nature of natural dyes, I avoid using hot water. I have been ironing out the wax. This is a traditional method of wax removal. The fabric is sandwiched between layers of absorbent paper and the heat is applied by iron to melt out the wax. It is difficult to remove 100% of the wax out and a residue is left behind.

I have found that the best results using natural dyes for batik are the dyes that can be used in a cold/warm dyebath. A hot dyebath would melt the wax on contact.

Natural clothing, bags and so on...

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NATURAL DYED SILK SHAWLS

Our continuous search for new colours has resulted in three new shades, each made of blends using indigo. Blackberry soon became a favourite as it is a relatively strong colour and fairly similar to that of "Lac". Lac is a resin that is secreted by an insect (Laccifer Lacca) on the branches of ficus trees in India and surrounding parts of Asia. Blackberry is a bluer purple, which can be obtained from lac if it is over-dyed with indigo. Instead of over-dying, we mixed blackberry and indigo directly in the dyebath to produce a much darker shade than is possible by blackberry alone. The result can be seen in the photo below.

We have been producing light pink from "Majito" (madder root). A very weak solution of this dyestuff was added to a tiny amount of indigo, this resulted in a very soft shade somewhere between beige and kharki.

"Harro" (chebulic myrobolon) is a fruit that we use for yellow / yellow-kharki. The addition of a pinch of indigo brings out the greener side to harro. This experiment was done using left over dyebaths, so the colour pigments left in the bath were mild to say the least.

TOP: Blackberry and Indigo

MIDDLE: Madder Root and Indigo

BOTTOM: Chebulic Myrobolon and Indigo

Our current range of silk shawls are available at our stall at festivals and events. The online collection is limited to just five colours at present as we have those colours dyed in quantity and hold stock. The expanding range of experimental colours sees just a couple of silk shawls for most of the colours and shades. Due to the dyeing facilities available to us outside of our Nepal dying houses, we can only dye a few shawls at a time. With natural dyes, the only way to produce the same colour on different garments is to dye them at the same time. The fact that the dyebath gets weaker after each dyeing allows us to produces different tones of the same colour, but in smaller quantity.

Natural clothing, bags and so on...

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NATURAL DYEING WITH BLACKBERRY

One of the latest dyestuffs for us to try out was blackberry. Until recently, our knowledge and experience of natural dyeing was basically limited to plants and fruits native to Nepal. This time we only had to travel as far as 100 metres to collect the wild blackberries needed for our dyebath.

Compared to all over dyestuffs, blackberry was by far the most pleasant to work with. This is largely down to the fine sweet fruity smell. Boiling up nettles or some of the Nepali woods produces a strong odour that, although not foul, isn't exactly kind on the senses.

Maybe we collected and boiled too many blackberries or maybe the natural colouring is very strong, either way we managed to produce some strong colours on a few garments before the dyebath lost its power. As per usual, we used alum as a mordant and went through the normal procedures for making the dye. One note of interest is the change of colour that takes place between the fabric being removed from the pan and it having been thoroughly rinsed and ready to dry. The photographs should illustrate this change, which I believe to be caused by oxidisation. I will have to do a little reading up in order to confirm the cause of this colour change. I have experienced greens turn to blues during woad dyeing, which is definitely the result of oxygen reacting with the indigo pigment.

Natural clothing, bags and so on...

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NATURAL DYEING WITH NETTLE

We had long known that nettles can be used for natural dyeing to produce soft shades of yellow, but we had never tried it... until now!

Our target was, as usual, silk shawls. The silk shawls were mordanted with alum in the usual way (although cream of tartar was also added for the first shawl.)

From the photos you will see the process from start to the finished shawls. I have to admit that this was probably the first natural dyestuff that didn't smell so nice when boiling away in the large pan. Blackberries will win the award for sweetest smelling dyestuff!

I selected nettle leaves and stalks as it was easier than picking just the leaves. I am not so sure of what, if any, differences there would have been if we had selected just the leaves.

The resulting colour was not as pleasing as I had expected, but it certainly offers us range of soft tones. There really isn't much else to report as I believe the photos will explain far more details of our experiment.

Natural clothing, bags and so on...

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NATURAL DYEING WITH RED CABBAGE

Dyeing with red cabbage produced a pleasing result. I found that blending the cabbage up in a mixer made it a lot easier to extract the pigment "anthocyanin" from its leaves.

This vegetable's natural colouring is used for food dyes, so I was expecting a strong colour on silk.

The changes in colour at the various stages was quite interesting.

The blended cabbage had been boiled, left to soak overnight then boiled two more times. This left the cabbage a pale blue with the dyebath a strong lilac.

It is best not to expose silk to high temperatures, so the mordanted silk shawls were lowered into a cool dyebath. Making sure they had plenty of room to move freely whilst totally submerged, It started to gently heat the dye bath.

I continued heating until I had reached the desired depth of colour and then rinsed the shawls in a solution of water and "ritha" also known as soapnut. Once dry, a second rinse was done just to make sure that all excess colour had been removed.

The silk shawls had been mordanted in alum some weeks earlier, so it was also interesting to discover that it causes no harm to have a lengthy period of time between mordanting and dyeing.

It is with this dyestuff that I wish to try BATIK on a 55% hemp 45% organic cotton material. I think this dye is strong enough to give cotton a smooth colour, (especially if dyestuff quantity is doubled!)

Natural clothing, bags and so on...

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NATURAL DYEING WITH BEETROOT

It was with great interest that we tried using a new dyestuff. Beetroot is a very common product and, unlike most of our dyestuffs, is readily available from any supermarket.

Dyeing silk shawls requires less heat in the dyebath compared to other fabrics. Boiling up the beetroot and filtering was done in the same way as all our other colours (except indigo!), the mordanting of the silk shawls was also done the same way as usual.

Once the dyebath has been prepared and allowed to cool, the shawls are carefully lowered into the bath. This is then slowly heated until a mild simmering occurs. The shawls are now ready to be taken out and rinsed 2 or 3 times.

We were pleased with the resulting colour. (Next time we will try using red cabbage!)

Natural clothing, bags and so on...

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WOAD..Good to be Blue!

This past weekend saw an exciting opportunity for Hiromi and I to see indigo dying done in the traditional English way. Woad is a plant native to the UK that produces a beautiful indigo much in the same way it did over a thousand years ago.

Any eco-conscious person who is passionate about clothing falls into one of two categories. Those who already know about what is being done at Woad Barn near Dereham in Norfolk and those who should know!

Eco-clothing doesn't just stop at using natural fibers. Replacing the use of harmful chemical dyes with natural dyes is just as important.

Woad-inc is a farm run by a friendly couple who are passionate about farming woad and extracting the indigo pigment. Ian Howard and his wife Bernadette run workshops on woad dying, explain the intricate process and share their fascination with woad. Their shop gave me the feeling of being back in Japan, where indigo is just as popular today as it was centuries before. A visit to their website is a must for anyone interested in natural dyes and if you can make your way to Norfolk, their workshop comes highly recommended.