RAINY SATURDAY FUN

 On our morning walk this morning, I saw this absolutely gorgeously vibrant orange Azalea bush.  I stole a couple of flowers off it.  

I came home and did some eco prints to see what color I could get from them.  I just used alum and steamed the flowers between watercolor paper. 

It didn't come out like I thought.  That's half the fun sometimes.  You never know what you'll get.  It's an indigo blue and yellow.  It's definitely more blue than it appears in this photo.

I pulled out a batik print that I thought I might use for the end of the Pegasus Bars quilt.  I pinned it up to audition it.  What do you think?

BIRTHDAY BOUQUET SCARFS

My husband gave me a dozen red roses for my birthday, and after I enjoyed them for a few days, I smashed them into a scarf:

Petals before going thru Press

Petals after going thru Press

The finished 12-Rose scarf

I also got a mixed bouquet.  I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't.  The bouquet consisted of purple daisies (I think they were dyed - that is the brilliant pinks at the ends of the scarf),pink carnations, white chrysanthemums, and a yellow rose.

I arranged them, and then smashed them!

Birthday Bouquet Scarf

Now I can have my birthday flowers forever!

Detail of Birthday Bouquet Scarf

YELLOW WEEDS FROM PARK

I was bad.  I picked these yellow flowers from a local park.  I know it's not a good idea to pick flowers that are there for everyone's enjoyment, but, it is late fall and they won't be lasting too much longer, and, I only picked a few flowers from each plant (to minimize their absence).

And, I was bad, because I used these plants and I have no idea what they are!  I should make some attempt to figure out their name.  I've seen them around different areas, like a weed.  The plants grow to about 30" high, and are about 24" across a clump.  I didn't notice until I started to pick them that they have a very sticky 'sap' on them.  It's on the flower petals and the receptacle.  I picked the whole flower, and then when I got home, I separated the yellow petals from the green receptacles.

I made up three dye baths.  One for the green and yellowish receptacles, one for the yellow petals and another using onion skin from a yellow onion.  I left the fabrics in the dye baths for about three days.

Here are the results:

Left, the weed's receptacles, middle is the yellow petals, and right is the yellow onion skins.

I really like the unexpected variations of color from the receptacles.

FUN WITH FLOWERS

I had an irresistible desire to find out what fabric dyed from the petunias at work would look like.  So, I couldn't help myself and picked some last weekend and put them in the freezer.  These petunias are everywhere, there are plenty of them and I only picked a few from each plant and picked them from the backside, so no one would notice!

I was intrigued because of the color.  The only way I can describe it is FUSHCIA pink:

According to Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles  by India Flint freezing the delicate flowers causes the individual cells holding the dye to rupture, so not much heat is needed to release the dye.

I was surprised when I brought the flowers out of the freezer they had changed color to a deep purple.  In fact, when I started stuffing the frozen petals into a nylon sock they were already releasing the dye all over my hands and the countertops!

I put the sock of flowers into a pot of hot warm (from the tap) and heated it.   After squeezing all the liquid from the petals in the sock, I divided the liquid into four glass quart jars.  I left one of them 'plain', one of them I added a little alum to, one of them I added a little copper sulphate and the last one I dropped some rusty pieces of steel, which would be akin to adding iron.  Then I put a fat quarter of cotton, which had been prepped with an alum mordant,  into each one:

Instantly you could see the color differences.  The plain is, well..., plain.  The copper has a decidedly blue-tint.  The alum leans more to the red, and the one with the iron is definitely blacker.

At this point, I realized that I had made a big mistake by heating the flowers too much.  And, I probably added too much water to the dye pot.  These mistakes resulted in a very poor showing of the fabulous color I was seeing from the iced-flowers.  The next day I took the fabrics out of their baths and let them oxidate for about an hour and then put them back in.  I will leave them for another day or two, but I don't think that they will improve or get darker.

  

Pretty sad looking at this point.  But, I have really learned a lot.  And, after all, that's what this is all about!  I think next week I'm going to gather some more of the same flowers and try again.  This time without the heat, and less water.  

(I went out into our garden and picked all the petals off some of our flowers.  We don't have a lot, but I picked all the blooms off of our purple petunia, one red geranium, and one small yellow plant.  They are in the freezer, I'll be putting them in the dye pot tomorrow! My husband was stupefied as to why I decimated the flowers!  Hey, it's raining, they'd be gone soon anyway.)