Dyes and a promise!

This is one of trays of bundles l have waiting to be opened..it is hard to be so patient!

This is some of my latest opened bundles, drying on the radiator in my kitchen. The other day my husband asked,  "why the radiator in the kitchen looked so dirty lately"? I had to admit to it being my fault because of my Dyeing experiments!!!
The next pieces were for once, all steamed together! Normally l try and keep bundles unmixed, to enable me to keep good records. I decided this once l would "bung" everything in together, in a steaming pot and see what happened!

 This first piece was red cabbage wrapped in white, thick cotton and then closed with plastic bands.

 This is a piece of an old, white pillowcase, which was way past it's best. It was wrapped round sweet potatoes, then l used the usual elastic band to wrap it.

This is one of my favorite pieces out of this batch. It is the same pillowcase, with rusty tins, eucalyptus leaves and some of the leaves laid onto the rusty cans before wrapping.

Another view of this large piece of cotton.

.........................................and this is the middle of the same pillowcase cotton.

 This piece is a piece of canvas wrapped with just Eucalytus leaves.

 This is a piece of thick canvas wrapped with eucalyptus leaves and a small piece of rusty metal.

 Like this part of the thick cotton dyed with the leaves.

 These are two pieces of cotton which were boil in the liquid that the other fabrics were being steamed in.

One of the things l have learnt from this steam is this. When you muddle up different things to dye with, the colours that come out of the leaves or "stuff" leaks into the water that is steaming your fabrics...so l find you get results that are maybe not what you expected. This isn't wrong but is worth thinking about if you want what l call "pure" colours from just one type of leaf or berry. l opened these bundles too soon because l was impatient!!!Wish l had waited as l know the colours would have been a lot better. l have  made a promise to myself that from now on, l will go back to being patient again in 2011.