Dyeing with red cabbage

Von am 16. Mai. 2009


A new attempt on dyeing cotton with natural food-colours. Successful? (UPDATED)

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Seems like forever now, I’m trying out different methods and food for dyeing cotton -the ultimate goal of course being that I can include hand-dyed-with-food fabrics in a treches’ collection. But until now, the colours all wash out in the first rinsing.

What I’ve recently learned though, is that the pH of the fabric has to be strong basic -pH 10,5 till 11! So I’ve ordered some Sodium Carbonate and pH-strips from the drug store.

(I dont know excactly how Sodium Carbonate is made, but I read that the “No Impact Man” who wanted to live sustainable for one year, started to use it instead of soap, so it should not be too bad.)

Sodium Carbonate is also used in cooking, but not in the very-basic relations I’m about to mix, so better wear gloves..
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The fabric is soaked in the mix for about half an hour.

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Ah, yes, Before all this I boiled the red cabbage for a couple of hours, and got a dark-purple liquid (thats the wine-bottle on the photo), as well as loads of stinky (!!) overboiled cabbage.

Now, I put the soaked cotton-patch into the cabbage-liquid and… andddd… It turns.. green?

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Yes, definitely, it’s suddenly all bright green! (The liquid changed colour when I added the basic cotton to it!)

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..Well, green is quite cool actually, and better than no colour at all!

I’m also trying out if the left over cabbage can be use for dyeing (because I’m for sure not gonna eat it!.. :)

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So.. Now it has to stay soaked for about 24 hours. And then we’ll see if the colour stays when the dye is washed out…

(to be continued..)

UPDATE :

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well… after 24 hours, the smell was getting really bad. and the fabric should be ready -bright green was my plan!

but, as you can see, the fabric that had been soaked in the cabbage-”juice” washed right out again -a slight hint of mint-green maybe, but thats not good enough!

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this is the fabric where I put the pieces of cabbage – it looks a lot better! after cleaning it though, most of the colours wash out, but actually -some parts of it is definitely green!

so, what’s next? I want to try to find a way to intensify the dyes, and maybe try something else than cabbage (to bad it’s not beet-root season..) —i’m not giving up yet!