Eucalypts of Narrogin - Art, Science and Story
Dye Process
Natural dyeing is a slow process. We chose to follow these steps, including a week of soaking, to maximise the chance of extracting colour and not just tannins from the leaf and bark.
We were careful to be consistent in our procedures to enable comparison between trees.
Method
Day 1
Number swatches and 50cm lengths of wool
Weigh 600g bark and leaves. Soak in 12L water 1 week
Day 7
Soak pre-mordanted batches of swatches separately in water overnight to ensure dampness.
Simmer dye 1 hour. Leave to cool 24 hours before removing vegetation. Add enough water to take liquid back up to 12L
Day 8
Reserve 2L of dye. Add 2L of dye into all 5 jars with labels: no mordant, Alum, Iron, Copper, Tannin. Add numbered swatches to jars, simmer 1 hour in a water bath. Leave 24 hours.
Day 9
Modifiers prepared in clean jars of 1.5L hot water.
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Tannin at 10% WOF
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Alum sulphate at 10% WOF
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Iron sulphate at 1% WOF
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Copper sulphate at 5% WOF
Remove, rinse and sort swatches.
Hang 1, 6, 11, 16 and 21 to dry. These do not get post dips. Add other swatches to correct hot modifier solutions: 2, 7, 12, 17 and 22 into tannin; 3, 8, 13, 18, 23 into alum, 4, 9, 14, 19, 24 into iron and 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 into copper. Leave 30 minutes, then rinse and dry.
