Eco Printing Tips. 9 things I have I learned about eco printing that will help you make stunning prints even if you are complete beginner!
Find out which are the best plants for eco printing. FREE printable list of 30 leaves and flowers for eco printing.
How to Mordant Cotton Fabric with Aluminum Acetate for light and wash-fast colors in Eco Printing and Natural Dyeing
[responsivevoice_button] Way back in 2016, when I had just begun selling clothes under the label Gumnut Magic, I had a lot of interest from other natural dyers about my eco-print technique. Back th…
Introductory notes: The search for hidden colours, forms and textures is for me the lure of eco dyeing and eco printing, and a form of art. Eco dyeing and eco printing are essentially direct contac…
Eco Printing or Eco Dyeing on Fabric. How to make Eco Prints with leaves on silk chiffon and cotton fabric with an iron modifier.
DIY Iron Mordant Recipe for Natural Dyeing and Eco Printing. Learn how to make an Iron and Copper Mordant for Plant Dyeing and Eco Dyeing.
Eco Printing or Eco Dyeing on Fabric. How to make Eco Prints with leaves on silk chiffon and cotton fabric with an iron modifier.
Eco Printing or Eco Dyeing on Fabric. How to make Eco Prints with leaves on silk chiffon and cotton fabric with an iron modifier.
Eco Printing Tips. 9 things I have I learned about eco printing that will help you make stunning prints even if you are complete beginner!
Eco Printing or Eco Dyeing on Fabric. How to make Eco Prints with leaves on silk chiffon and cotton fabric with an iron modifier.
Using the amazing shapes found in nature and a new way of eco printing, capture intricate details. Resist Method of Eco Printing allows many possibilities
Why stop at one print if you can get much more interest by printing again!? Amazing reactions create unique details with this multiple Eco Print Effects.
Fabric printing with natural dyes or ecoprint, is a fantastic way to extract dye from leaves, flowers, food waste and rusty elements.
Summer is in full swing in my garden, so that means I'm eco printing on paper all the leaves and flowers I can lay my hands on.
If it wasn't amazing enough to get Eco prints from Nature; see how much magic happens when you combine them; Indigo & Eco Printing Magic
If it wasn't amazing enough to get Eco prints from Nature; see how much magic happens when you combine them; Indigo & Eco Printing Magic
DIY Iron Mordant Recipe for Natural Dyeing and Eco Printing. Learn how to make an Iron and Copper Mordant for Plant Dyeing and Eco Dyeing.
What are the best plants for eco printing? Here is a free list of leaves and flowers that make great eco prints on paper and fabric.
How to make your first Eco Print a success!
See how various different Eco Printing methods affect the outcome. Understand what creates the mysterious results.
See how various different Eco Printing methods affect the outcome. Understand what creates the mysterious results.
Eco printing has so many questions since it is such an interesting art form. I'll share my Eco Printing Tips & tricks with you from my many experimentations
Learn about Eco Printing on Paper in this step by step tutorial. Discover how to create unique eco dyed papers using leaves and flowers
Eco printing is the process of transferring color directly from a flower or plant to a piece of cloth. It's a simple and fun natural dye technique that gives truly stunning results. In this post, I will show you how to eco print with flowers.
In this blog I want to show you the results of different mordants with different leaves.
Eco printing with iron water for paper and fabric. DIY Tutorial which includes a FREE Printable list of best leaves and flowers to use.
Hey creative mamas! Have you ever thought that it was possible to get your kids right into nature through a fun crafty activity? Eco print with natural dyes will do just that. It's totally safe,
I’ve just released my new ebook all about eco-printing so I thought this might be a good time to write a quick post about the leaf that started it all for me, eucalyptus! I first learned about eco-printing in my natural dyes and weaving class in college over ten years ago. I saw an example of eucalyptus leaves printed on silk and I was shocked to see they printed a beautiful orange. It took me many years and lots of twists and turns before I finally got a chance to try the method myself and when
Top 10 tips for eco printing on paper. Get bright and lasting eco prints by applying these simple steps in the process of printing.
Learn the basic techniques use to make your own beautiful eco-prints. Follow along to see how to print on paper and turn your art into inexpensive decor.
It's over a year since I first wrote a post about using an iron blanket. I remember doing more bundle dye experiments when all the leaves changed colour in 2017 and I did get closer to the iron blanket effects I hoped for. A couple of weeks ago, noticing some of the oak leaves were already falling, I managed to find the pieces of cloth I printed last year, but really couldn't bring to mind quite how I had done it. Unfortunately, last autumn I had little headspace to spare and wasn't blogging. To save me forgetting again, today I'm writing a reference blog about how I have now retraced my steps and moved a bit further forward. Taking the steps in order, first scour some natural fabric by washing it with soda ash to take off any oils, waxes or stiffeners. Next, mordant wool and silk with alum, cotton and linen with aluminium acetate. Then dye it by simmering the fabric in a plant dye bath. This picture shows linen, silk and wool pieces, all dyed with Dyers Chamomile flowers. Now the iron blanket. Home made iron acetate solution, made by leaving rusty metal in a mixture of water and vinegar for weeks or months, is inevitably of variable and unknown concentration. I'd say that in practice, the results of using the contents of my rust filled jam jar suggest my homemade solution is usually pretty weak. For the purpose of investigation, I made up a measured solution of ferrous sulphate, pouring 100ml boiling water on 10g of the powder and stirring, so that I would know 10ml contained 1g of iron. Using a syringe, I drew up 20ml and added it to a washing up bowl half full of water. By eye, that 2g of ferrous sulphate gave the bowl a very pale orange colour. My blanket fabric was a fairly thick cotton, cut from an old curtain. It was soaked in the bowl of iron solution for several hours and squeezed out just before using it. My dyed fabric had been dried without rinsing, straight from the dye bath. I put a piece of linen (half the leg of some loose trousers) to soak in plain water and collected a selection of leaves from the garden, plus oak and sycamore from the trees down the road. I unrolled some baking parchment on the table, smoothed out the wet dyed linen on its surface, laid out the leaves, some face down and some face up, then placed the iron blanket over the top. All the layers, baking parchment, dyed linen, leaves and iron blanket, were rolled up around a section of plastic drainpipe, then bound firmly with string. The completed bundle was stood on a trivet inside a very large pot with water in the bottom, the lid was put on and the pot was heated to the boil before turning the gas down low to keep steaming the bundle for two hours. I left it overnight to cool and next day, unrolled it. Below is a photo of the dyed linen and the iron blanket, laid out side by side. Not a ravishing success, but much can be learned from looking at it. As expected, the leaves varied in their affinity for iron, which I believe may be due to the amount of tannin each species contains. Most had made blacker shapes where the underside of the leaves faced the iron blanket than where the underside of the leaf had faced the dyed cloth. This effect showed up even more clearly once the iron blanket had dried out. What happened on the dyed linen is less obvious, though much more important. I decided that the central oak leaf in this photo had worked best as a resist by being laid with its underside facing the iron blanket, as the yellow is brighter than the adjacent oak leaves which had been laid with their undersides facing the linen. I had rather hoped that where the iron blanket had been in direct contact with the linen with no leaf in between, the iron would have modified the chamomile dye to a warm green. As you can see, the yellow actually went more of a dark khaki. Unexpectedly, the Japanese Maple and the ginkgo leaves seem to have sucked the yellow dye out of the linen. I had read people recommending both of these types of leaves in the past and been disappointed that I couldn't get any dye or iron dip print from my trees. I am delighted to discover that the damn things actually work by 'exhausting' other dyes :) The hardy geranium aka cranesbill leaves had left beautiful, if subtle prints, full of detailed edges and veins. I grow several varieties, because they make lovely prints in contact dye bundles when dipped in iron. In spring, some types will print with their own yellow dye. Sorry, I don't know the names of the different kinds, but this is what the plants look like at the moment. Anyway, since they will soon die back when the cold nights come, I thought I would include cranesbill leaves in the next test piece, this time a good silk scarf. I laid the leaves on densely, hoping for pale shapes from the exhaust effect of maple and ginkgo leaves, fine patterns from the cranesbill and bold yellow resist shapes from the oak. Unrolling the first turn of the bundle looked great. Unrolling more turns revealed much darker silk and far less clarity of leaf prints. Time for a cup of tea and a fag and a careful think. I decided that the baking parchment wasn't preventing iron from the blanket soaking through to the layers rolled underneath and there was just too much iron everywhere. First modification of the technique was to reduce the amount of iron. For my next silk scarf I used an iron blanket cut from a thin, worn out cotton bed sheet. It was soaked in the same washing up bowl of iron solution, but wrung out firmly after soaking. I had read before about people using layers of clingfilm in their bundles, but never fancied the idea. Clingfilm isn't biodegradable or reusable and anyway, I thought it might melt during the steaming and weld itself onto the bundle. Funny how buggering up an expensive piece of silk has changed my attitude, I felt quite ready to give cling film a go. After steaming, the bundle looked as though it had been shrinkwrapped. Happily, the clingfilm peeled off with no trouble. It had confined the iron from the blanket, allowing it to work only on the single layer of silk against which the blanket was pressed. With less iron available from the thin cotton blanket, the background colour looked much less gloomy, though you can see deeper lines where the string had squeezed the dyed silk most tightly. Taking away that shroud of darkness made it much easier to examine the actual leaf impressions. The ginkgo had had the most powerful exhaust effect though I could now see that the sycamore had also reduced the strength of the chamomile dye on the linen. With the clingfilm there to keep all the dye localised under the leaf, for the first time in my experience, the Japanese maple had left its own pink dye and the purple smoke bush had added a blueish green. Thick oak and fern leaves had acted purely as resists, keeping the iron blanket off the silk but neither exhausting nor adding anything to the dyed linen. I am truly delighted to have made a good iron blanket printed silk scarf. With less iron in it, even the effects on the iron blanket looked more interesting. Comparing the baking paper roll against the clingfilm, I shall have to weigh concerns about their relative biodegradabilty against my preference for sharp results. Anyone got a great idea for recycling steamed clingfilm?
Before the July- August garden begins to blooms its gaudy head off and I get carried away taking photos, I thought I might present some of the last of my June eco print images. Artist and bl…
Try this fun tutorial that shows you how to experiment with eco printing on paper giving you beautiful results from nature.
Discover which are the best mordants for eco printing on fabric. Free list of leaves and flowers to use in combination with mordants.
Learn how to create a beautiful custom design on silk, or cotton fabric, with this amazing eco printing technique.
