I have a lot of beautiful roses in the garden and so thought I would try dyeing with them. I collected the fully open blooms, I wish you could smell them.
I'm trying a selection of textiles, cotton, silk, cotton threads, some lace of unknown content. I washed them all and then soaked them in a bowl of three parts cold water, one part white vinegar for an hour.
Meanwhile I separated the petals from the flower heads and cut them into small pieces. I was reminded of making rose petal perfume as a small child! The petals were covered with cold water, about twice the amount of water as petals, and brought to the boil. I then left them to simmer on a low heat for an hour.
I gave the fabrics a good rinse and squeezed out as much water as I could. One piece I tied up with elastic bands to see if I could get some pink and white fabric, the other pieces I left as they were. The colour had come out of the petals, I strained the mixture into a glass bowl, squashed the petal pulp to remove any extra dye, and was delighted to see the depth of colour in the bowl.
I put all the fabric into the bowl of dye, looks pretty doesn't it? With fingers crossed I added a plate to hold all the fabric under the dye and set the bowl aside. I'm going to leave it overnight….
what a lovely idea - hope that it works! I'm just imagining the smell of them....
ReplyDeleteOooh, hope it comes out as you hope for, the flowers were a beautiful colour '
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see the result of the dyed fabric. The fragrance must have been fantastic!
ReplyDeleteGood luck, can't wait to see the result.
ReplyDeleteGillx
Looks like fun. Hope it all works out. Would like to try the jar dyeing too.
ReplyDelete