I decided to give the steamer a break and make an onion dye bath in the boiler. Before bundling local and garden material around sticks, I rinsed each piece of silk in a dilute iron water solution (see Lesson 2 below).

Some of the silk pieces were rescued from worn /worn out silk garments.  I learned a good lesson with these. Lesson 1: bundle up the softer plants only as tough stems rip the old fabric.

A former cream silk shirt sleeve

I quite like the effect of the embroidery on this piece from a silk pyjama top.

Lesson 2: Use more iron!  I am reasonably happy with the results below although I think some of them would have been more striking if the iron solution had been stronger.

Casuarina needles and oregano

Miscellaneous fallen Eucalyptus leaves from the Bayswater wetlands

Lesson 3:  the nature of the “bandage” affects the penetration of the dye into  the fabric.  Where I used cotton gauze to bind the bundles there was a greater contribution from the onion skins than in the cases where I used heavier cotton.

Heavier cotton on the left and the gauze on the right.

My next blog will record the result of adding a lump of scrap iron to the same bath as was used for the pieces above.