Craft has taken a back seat this year while I have worked on other poetry-related projects (like my Cards for Poets which you can buy in my shop) so it was fabulous to be asked to teach an eco-dyeing workshop. In the way that these things work, I had been thinking about doing some more eco-dyeing for a while. There is something magical about the whole process of foraging for leaves, rolling them into bundles and then cooking them in a pot.
Early Sunday morning, I gathered up all my pots, rusty bits of metal, copper rods and steel cans and took them across town to Niddrie. Niddrie is a super cute suburb with a huge main street, shopping strip with trams running down the centre. Melbourne is so huge – I'm always discovering new places that I didn't even know existed. I think I could live here for the rest of my life and still not know it all. Exciting thought!
We were dyeing at a gorgeous house right next to Steel creek. After I had set up all the materials and put the pots on to boil (it can take a while in my ginormous steel pot) we went for a foraging walk along the creek.
We started out barefoot on the grass where I ran through some sense awakening exercises I learnt as a nature connection mentor with Firekeepers. It's super easy to walk through the world, in our own heads, without noticing the details of our surroundings. I also went through the respectful foraging rules – take from healthy plants, take a small amount, don't take from the first plant you see, only take from plants if there are lots of them. We want the pants to continue to thrive!
Then it was back to the house for the fun of bundling our leaves on wool or heavy duty 300gsm watercolour paper. With eco dyeing, it's all about the leaves and how you place the on the paper. There are so many different options for expressing your creativity and individuality which I love about this particular craft. The leaves you choose, where you please them, the material you put them on and how you tie your bundles.
You can steam or boil your bundles. Steaming gives you a background that is the same colour as your material (in this case wool or paper) with hopefully fabulous leaf prints. Boiling adds colours from the leaves to the water which in turn soaks into the fabric and colours it. You can also choose to add more leaves to the pot. We had three pots on the stove.
And then there's the pots themselves. Aluminium pots brighten your colours, copper pots bring out greens and steel pot don't have an effect. In the small aluminium pot we added some extra purple plum leaves and sticks from my street to get some purple happening. We also added some rusty nails and a horseshoe which darken colours. In the big steel pot went cinerea leaves (for orange) and other gum leaves to make a brown (we ended up with a purple/brown). In the aluminium steamer stack we just added water.
One of the great things about eco-dyeing is that it is different every time because the leaves you choose are little time capsules that reflect that moment in the plant's life – the sunshine, the rain and the soil in which it grew. The water you use has an effect on the result as do all the little decisions you make along the way.
And then after you wait for your bundles to cook, you have the surprise and joy of opening your little gifts to yourself!
The paper bundles all spread out and drying! Did you know that you can iron watercolour paper? Yep, it's true!
So there you have it, another successful eco-dyeing workshop!