Eco Printing
Cathy (Luvswool) and I had an Eco Printing day this summer. I mordanted my fabrics before hand and picked some flowers and leaves from my garden and froze them to bring.
Elizabeth had kindly sent Cathy some Smokebush and Japanese Maple leaves. Cathy generously shared some with me. Thanks Elizabeth and Cathy!
I had brought some coreopsis, day lilies, lobelia, verbena, petunias and leaves from my neighbors tree. I have no idea what kind, but they were red, not maple, and a little wavy. Other than a few faint marks none of my stuff did much with the exception of the coreopsis.
Cathy also had some coreopsis, a little bigger in flower size, plum, geranium and rose leaves and pansy flowers.
Of course, time was at a premium and we were anxious to get started and forgot to take pics with the leaves and flowers before wrapping. My bad.
My first experience with eco printing last year was a disaster. So, I had a lot to learn and fortunately Cathy had everything ready when I got there. So we got right to work laying out, dipping leaves in iron water and wrapping. We used copper pipes, bamboo mat and binders and clips.
We had two pots going, one plain and one with sweet gum seed water. I had brought the seeds from California.
The light plum fabric below was Egyptian cotton from an old bed sheet. It’s too tightly woven to felt, but I wanted to try printing on it. We also added a piece of handmade paper on the inside to print on both sides.
While still wet:
Now dry:
Here are both sides of the paper:
I had brought a variety of fabrics — silk habotai, cotton broadcloth, cotton voile and cotton kona cloth. This was the kona cloth while still wet.
Here are both sides and a couple of closeups:
After drying you can clearly see the string marks and the bamboo mat marks.
The silk piece came out nicely. Here it is wet:
Then dry:
I think the Japanese Maple, Smokebush, rose leaves, coreopsis flowers and leaves, plum leaves and geranium and pansies made the nicest prints.
The broadcloth didn’t fare as well except for the very ends.
The cotton voile:
Thanks Cathy for your guidance! I’m pleased with the results.
Well, we’ve managed to hang on to summer for one more post. Next time I hope to remember to take before pictures. Now I have to figure out what to do with all this. Any suggestions?