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.
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We were careful to be consistent in our procedures to enable comparison between trees.
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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.
