After the silk I randomly dyed old vintage French linens for several hours in the dyebath. Initially they seemed to go aubergine - however, once rinsed in cold water turned a definite donkey grey. Not at all expected but really lovely all the same!I then immersed some fine wool cloth which had an off white tone to it - this must have influenced the final outcome..Once left overnight, having added more salt and more vinegar it came out as a dark camel..I then machine washed it on a normal 40degree cycle and it came out completely khaki!!!! What?? Now that was a real surprise..you can see in the photo above the full range of colours I achieved from the one dye pot!
once boiled for an hour to a deep purply red liquor I added a large amount of salt as a fixative and also some malt vinegar . Whether the vinegar was needed I wasn't sure but it was worth a try..First I took some plain undyed habotai silk which took the dye perfectly. The colour was as expected a rich berry burgundy shade. Stunning!
well as some of you my well know I was experimenting with some eldeberry natural dye this weekend..seeing these purply black berries many a time I was convinced they must be loaded with pigment so off I went and collected a large bagful..
