Abundant blooms on Camellia bushes are one of the things I love most about winter in Sydney, Australia. Among flowers, I have found Camellias to have one of the strongest and most long lasting botanical colour sources. It is easy to obtain, and experimentation has shown there is a wide diversity of colour tones available.
I start by picking up fallen Camellia flowers from plants that produce darkest pink or red colours. A shopping bag full is not hard to gather, and will fill one of my large pots.
Add water to the pot until it reaches the top of your Camellias.
I put the pot on my gas ring burner to bring the temperature to a slow simmer, and then turn the gas down to maintain the simmer with the lid on. About every 10 minutes I push the top Camellias down into the water. After 30 minutes I turn off the gas and allow the Camellia bath to slowly cool with a blanket over the top. This gently helps continue the process of extracting colour, and can be left overnight or a number of days.
Once cool the dye can be strained off. I usually use a large colander with a layer of muslin, but here I am using a fine sieve.
As you can see, the colour is jewel like!
It also smells sweet, and the sensory pleasure of making this dye should not be under estimated!
Once strained, the dye is put into a large pot and warmed again to a slow simmer. Flowers are delicate, and unlike other plants, too much vigorous heat can damage the colour obtained. Damp fabric is then added, and again, simmered for 30 minutes, then covered and left for 1 to 3 days to soak up the colour.
As mentioned earlier, a wide tonal range can be obtained from Camellia dye. The overalls at the top of the page are made from supersoft woven wool, and dyed without any pretreatment. The fabric above is linen, that has been rust printed before going into a Camellia dye bath. The varied combination of vinegar (a mild acid) and rust on the linen have resulted in these 2 different colours.
Other tests have produced this array of colours.
The pink in the bottom right corner is the result on silk that has not had any treatment.
The button indicates that the piece of purple silk has received an Alum Mordant before dying.
Small amounts of Soda Ash (Alkali) was added to the Camellia dye to produce the top 3 colours.
While the rust printed linen, and both untreated and Alum Mordanted silk and wool colours have proven to remain fast, I have not experimented with the top 3 tones for fastness.
I would love to know if you are inspired by this post! Please share your thoughts and experiences. Wendy@kayleenbondijunction.com
Comentarios