Category Archives: Natural dyeing

Red Onion Treasure

I love caramelised onion. Particularly caramelised RED onions. They make great tart fillings with goats cheese or blue cheese, served as entrees at a dinner party or as the main lunch option, especially if you might have vegetarians in the … Continue reading

Posted in dyeing with red onion, Natural dyeing, woollen yarn dyeing | 2 Comments

Contemporary Quilts: The Challenge to Make a Point

Bear with me, this is a long and indulgent blog. At a recent meeting of the Contemporary Quilt Group (contemporarywa.wordpress.com/about/) of the Western Australian Quilters’ Association (https://www.waquilters.com) our speaker issued a challenge. After a thoughtful presentation to us all about … Continue reading

Posted in brown onion as dye, casuarina dyeing, cochineal dyeing, Design, dyeing with avocado pips, dyeing with red onion, Eucalyptus sp as dye, exhibiting, Geranium leaf printing, Machine quilting, Natural dyeing, patchwork | 8 Comments

Brown Onion Dip

A new blog is well overdue but I’m not very productive or innovative at the moment so I am sharing something I did two nights ago after seeing a new you tube video from “Rebecca from Chemknits“:   The first … Continue reading

Posted in brown onion as dye, Natural dyeing, Scarf | 2 Comments

Mulberries: maximising their impact

My next door neighbour knows I like to use natural dyes.  Still, coming home in early summer to find a couple of containers of fresh mulberries on my porch was a real surprise.  I knew, however, that she didn’t intend … Continue reading

Posted in Dyeing with mulberries, Natural dyeing, soy milk, soy milk mordant for cellulose fibres | Leave a comment

Avocado pips and soy milk on cotton damask

I have previously used avocado pips in a high pH bath to produce pinkish colour on cotton. This time I wanted to explore the effect of variations in dyeing conditions. The conditions  that we know affect colour are, inter alia, … Continue reading

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Natural dyeing : a tongue in cheek look at the vicissitudes of a cotton sheet’s life

Life as a cotton sheet can be fraught.  Not always of course.  The lucky ones get bought by people who use them on their beds for years.  They get to serve a very passive but important role. They mature and … Continue reading

Posted in dyeing with avocado pips, Geranium leaf printing, Iron mordant, Natural dyeing | 3 Comments

Is soy milk a mordant?

Jenny Dean (1) doesn’t think so.  She says…”I am rather puzzled by the many references I have seen recently to soya milk/soymilk “mordant”, as I would not describe soya milk as a mordant, rather as an assistant in certain dyeing and … Continue reading

Posted in Natural dyeing, soy milk, soy milk mordant for cellulose fibres | 7 Comments

I love mistletoe

OK, I know that’s like saying I love roses.  Which roses?  Name specific species! Leaves or flowers? Well, I don’t know more.  I harvested “mistletoe” from a forest reserve in Western Australia and used it experimentally on fabric. Because it’s … Continue reading

Posted in Mistletoe as dye, Natural dyeing | Leave a comment

Natural Dyeing from the Greengrocer

Artistic inspiration, always an elusive commodity for me, has left the building over the past week.  It’s rainy and cold: it’s soup weather here in Western Australia. So my inner Earth Mother must have kicked in.  Why not add a … Continue reading

Posted in brown onion as dye, Natural dyeing, purple cabbage as dye, purple carrot as dye, Turmeric as dye, turmeric tuber as dye | 3 Comments

A Coreopsis Opportunity

A couple of weekends ago WAFTA (http://www.wafta.com.au) was invited to an Open Garden in Victoria Park here in Western Australia.  The organisers had the foresight to ask us  to complement the beautiful garden beds with demonstrations of how fabric can … Continue reading

Posted in dyeing with red onion, Eucalyptus cinerea as dye, Eucalyptus sp as dye, Iron mordant, Natural dyeing, purple carrots as dyes | 1 Comment