Eucalyptus leaves

I’ve had plenty of luck lately finding lovely second-hand woollens to dye. Although cotton is my favourite for eco-printing, it is always a nice treat to use wool for a change. It gives such different results, especially when using eucalyptus leaves.

My favourite method for eco-printing on wool is to fold up the garment into a square, adding leaves as I go. Here I have used eucalyptus leaves. Then I press the bundle between tiles or blocks of wood and tie it firmly to hold the leaves in places. For thin bundles, clamps or clips can also be used.

I submerge this bundle in a dye bath and cook it for 2-3 hours (longer than I would do for cotton).

When it has cooled down, I unwrap it to reveal bright orange prints where the leaves were touching the fabric, and dark patches where the edges of the bundle were exposed to the dye bath.

Sometimes the dye seeps into the bundle and surrounds the leaf prints. And lines are created wherever the string was pressing firmly into the fabric.

Here is one of the finished pieces. The shibori patches have dried quite light on this one and just add gentle areas of warm brown to contrast with the bright leaf prints.

This piece I folded up into very small squares and tied between two pieces of hardwood. The fabric was already dyed blue with synthethic dyes when I bought it.

You can see how well the eucalyptus leaves have printed over the synthetic dye, and the lines created from the folding method.

 

If you want to learn this technique with step-by-step instructions, I have an ecourse all about wool and shibori. It is suitable for complete beginners, or for anyone who wants to learn how to combine eco-printing and shibori techniques on wool.