Every few days, I am experimenting with a different natural plant dye, to see what colours it creates. The colours and shades that you can get vary a lot, depending on the acidity of the water, the mordant you use, the strength of the dye stock and the type of material you are dyeing.
Logwood
Logwood or Haematoxylon Campechianum comes from the heartwood of the logwood trees that grow in Mexico and Central and South America. Logwood can produce rich deep aubergine purples, dusky blues, soft lilacs and greys and silver tones. Logwood is not extremely colourfast, so a bit of care needs to be used in selecting the final final end use. Choose to make items that won’t get a lot of sun exposure.
I made a Logwood dyebath using 30 grams of Logwood powder. I let the dyebath simmer on medium heat for a few hours, not letting the bath reach boiling point.
I added pre-mordanted fabric to the dyepot and let that simmer for a few hours.
Logwood Dyed Cotton Market Tote Bag
Logwood Dyed Cotton Batiste Scarf
The scarf is made from Cotton Batiste with hand rolled hems. The scarves are completely made by hand in India, mostly by women, who are paid a higher salary than most due to the craftwork involved. No exploitation, no child labour, great quality.
The scarf has been decorated with a traditional Shibori resist dye technique. This scarf uses a Hitta Miura style of design where small areas of the fabric are hand knotted and then dipped into the Logwood natural dye vat. A soft zigzag Shibori design runs across the length of the hand dyed scarf.
Logwood Dyed Hemp Roving
There was still a lot of logwood colour left in the dyepot so I added pre-mordanted hemp roving into the dye stock and let this gently simmer for a few hours. The natural dye process helps to soften the hemp fibres making it easier to spin.
Logwood Dyed Bamboo Roving
Adding the pre-mordanted bamboo roving into the logwood plant dye stock, gave a beautiful and shimmery silver colour to the bamboo roving.
Logwood Dyed Hemp and Bamboo Blend Roving
Hemp and Bamboo are wonderful when they are blended together.
Please look for my Logwood naturally dyed products in my Spin Flora Etsy shop. If you can’t find them, please ask and I would be happy to make a custom order for you.
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