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Dyeing with Turmeric

6/2/2016

3 Comments

 
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The amazing Amy Lou of Craftwork Somerville is sharing with us some her natural dyeing wisdom. You can catch her class, Kitchen Dyeing, at Herbstalk this Saturday morning at 9am. Thanks, Amy Lou!


Turmeric Dyeing
by Amy Lou Stein


SUPPLIES:

Turmeric
Item to dye (I used a silk scarf & cotton tea towel) 
Non-reactive pot (stainless, glass or enamel with no rusting)
Gloves (if you like)
Resist (string, wood, rocks, rubber bands etc)
pH neutral soap

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GOOD INFO: 
Turmeric is considered a fugitive dye.  Fugitive dyes fade over time but can always be re-dyed.  It is also very pH sensitive so you should always wash it in PH neutral soap.  At home and work I only wash my fibers with pH neutral soap.  Most natural dyes need a mordant to bond with fiber (metallic salt like alum) but turmeric will dye fibers with out one.  

WEIGH: Weigh your dry fiber to be dyed then weigh out the correct amount of dye to be used.  For turmeric the ratio would be 50% the weight of the fabric.  If you were dyeing a 100 gram scarf you would use 50 grams of turmeric.  Dyes have different ratios to weight of fiber so you should always check 



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Folded silk scarf
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Dyeing the scarf
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Shibori technique/folded and clamped silk scarf
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100% cotton napkin using clothes line pins.
RESIST: If you want patterning on your fabric you need to create a resist where the dye will not bond with the fiber.  You can use rubber bands, string, rocks, clamps and more.  Seamwork has a great tutorial. 

WET:  Before you dye your fiber you always want to wet it out by soaking it in a bowl of water.  This helps with even distribution of the dyestuff.  You also want to help dissolve your turmeric by mixing it up in a cup of water before it enters the dye bath

DYEBATH:  Fill your pot with water and stir in the wetted out turmeric.  Add your fiber to dye and bring the pot to around 160 degrees then turn the pot off and let your dyestuff steep for 30 minutes to 2 hours…the longer it steeps the deeper the shade.  Be sure to keep stirring for even distribution of color

WASH: Once the pot has cooled you can rinse your project in the sink until the water runs clear.  Remove the resists (if you used them) and then rinse again using a pH neutral soap.  

LOVE AND HAPPINESS: Dry your work out of direct sunlight and enjoy your beautiful and naturally dyed fabric.
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Craftwork Somerville offers classes in all creative arts.  We have two amazing dye workshops coming up.  Mycopigments with Alissa Allen: Learn to dye with mushrooms using a local pallete.  Shibori & Indigo with Kathy Hattori of Botanical colors.  Starting in September we will have a new roster of amazing classes so please join our mailing list and stop in and say hi.
3 Comments
Melissa Kohl link
6/24/2016 03:41:58 pm

I took your workshop at Herbstalk and am hooked! I ran out of space to dry my creations indoors and brought them outside for 30 minutes or less. As you mentioned in this post, the dye completely disappeared on light garments and nearly so on others! I did not use a mordant and tried both the salt water and vinegar method for a fixative. I did not scour as I used old very washed clothes and did not have soda ash on hand. My question is whether the dye will fade that fast when worn in sunlight and whether or not scouring will result in fixing the color better. I am assuming that it will. Thank you for a fantastic class and the confidence to experiment! While it was sad to lose all of the brilliant hues in my varied garments, I only lost one day smelling turmeric and dying my hands yellow so that's got to be good for you. I will try dyeing them again, but with some sort of tannin, too. Maybe black tea, raspberry lead, or sumac leaves. Also, I know alum is very low toxicity but I am hoping to work without it. Do you know of any good books, resources, or artists who do not work with metal mordants?

Thank you!

Cheers,
Melissa

Reply
Eliza
10/31/2017 10:24:22 am

I was looking for ways to get turmeric out of my clothes, and leaving them in the sun was one way to fade it.

Reply
jude hill link
4/18/2017 07:30:23 am

Look into the work of India Flint, there is a huge community that has sprung up around here methods.
http://prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com/
books listed on her site.

Reply



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