I belong to a group of creative West Australian women called Designing Women. Their blog is http://designing-women-wa.blogspot.com.au

At yesterday’s monthly meeting we had a retrospective of her work from Rae.  It was very absorbing and I was particularly taken with her presentation of work done recently at a natural dyeing workshop in Victoria.

It inspired me to get the last piece of red cabbage out of the crisper and wrap thin slices of it in a piece of washed but otherwise not pre-treated cotton.  I steamed it for about an hour then allowed it to cool overnight with the cabbage still in it.

After washing and ironing it is paler and I’m concerned that it will fade even more over the next few days.  but I love the pale lilac colour, which went red/pink in parts as I ironed it dry.  Heat obviously plays a role in colour and I suspect that pH does too but I won’t be experimenting more with it for a while as I have to make some other pieces for a DW challenge!

The red cabbage

Red cabbage sliced

Very loosely piled into a sieve atop a saucepan of water

Very shortly after the start of steaming the colour started to seep into the fabric

Lots of colour after about an hour

Resting and cooling overnight

The cooled fabric in the morning

Before rinsing I let the fabric dry, assisting it with an iron.

I hope it will keep this colour after it
is washed but I’m not confident!