#52 weeks of botanicals: Eco Dyeing: August 2017 (Parts 2 & 3)

Well let's just say I'm not giving up hope of ever being successful at 'eco bundle dyeing' on silk, however, I won't be rushing out & buying more silk !   

Part 2

I made a dye bath out some raurekau bark I had in the freezer. I found in the past the this bark will often yield a lot of colour so I made it fairly weak.
I wrapped up the silk again, with a few different leaves & seeds inside & used the same method as I did with my 1st attempt. 

I got beautiful yellow kowhai seeds prints & a couple of lovely subtle leaf prints, so I cut this section off.
Alas, again virtually no colour on the fabric.

Part 3

Spurred on by the success of the ferns I wrapped some into the remainder of the cloth, wrapped it up again, tied it with string & popped it in the dye bath again. 

This time I got beautiful fern prints & lovely relief pattern from the string but again didn't get colour right to the centre.

So that's it, my experiment with silk & bundle dyeing is over.
Next adventure with plant dyes will be an immersion bath.