#dye experiments

Daria 2, yes this is a different one from from Daria1. Why? Half rooted dolls are my catnip, my kryptonite... and look, my impulse control went out the window during a rough mental health day so there are 2 more RH heads on their way that I might not keep (or I’ll sell Bubbles and Demaya). She made a very fun project (though finding the right body is going to be tough) - she had some small paint flaws to acetone off and a cracked head, which is usually how you get a half rooted doll: the machine hits a snag, makes a big hole, the head gets tossed into the reject bucket.

So you cut the hair out, heat the head, superglue it together and paint a new hairline that doesn’t go over the hole. It just so happens that I had 35g of greenish lemon blonde kiwi that I’ve been using for dye experiments: the blue you saw on Amee and a bag of 12g that I’d tinted a pale cream pink.

Now the rose pink hair she came with has an odd plastic-y feeling, it’s not nearly as soft as kiwi usually is, Daria1′s rose is the same - not as soft - but slightly less dry feeling so I’ll try it a flat iron to see if that helps.

I am loving the rosy cream look that really enhances her makeup. Now we wait for blue dye to arrive so I can dye some ash blonde the right shade of lilac-pink for her parting and tint Daria1 so she no longer clashes with her own makeup. Like, for real MGA bungled this doll’s design so bad.

The remainder of indigofera experiments are solar dyes that have left in the sun for two weeks

I wrote the method on each of the containers, but the rain washed it off, so trusting to my untrustworthy memory here!

Vaguely following the instructions on Turkey Red Journal

large round containers: leaves + water soar dye

The fibres were one skein of Millpost merino, and one skein of and nylon blend with alum mordant and a faint E. pauciflora overdye.

These two were the most exciting results, there was a little bit of blue on each of them that developed on the strands that were at the top of each container. Blue! My theory is that indigo needs oxygen to bond with fibre, and maybe the blue only at the top because that's where the water level was? Keen to try again with a solar dye that's half full of water and regularly agitated.

Takeaway containers

Botanical Printing Process

What I’ve been up to:

Deflocking Tokyo Eitan and painting over his tag holes, adding more dolls to ebay (at saffyruth - i’ll ship anywhere except USA and Canada until I do some postal tests), I did have a bunch of “head only” customs but I’m gradually bodying everyone as they sell better to the french audience.

Doing some kludged gradient dye tests: the wine pink was first dyed with blue ink except the roots, it mostly washed out but left enough stain for a greyish lilac. Not sure there’s enough for a barbie reroot but there’s plenty more wine mermaid dye (it’s my own hair stuff - mix with peroxide and 30 minutes will give you 3 months of shockingly vivid hair) - it takes quite long to develop alone but gives a nice solid colour if you’re willing to wait overnight. The blue was dyed with the last drops of semi permanent blue. I’m using hair harvested from a $4.50 bait Amaya head as it’s tough iceberg nylon instead of easily snagged (and hard to reroot) kiwi.

Not yet willing to blow 10-12€ each for a Cyan Magenta Yellow + Black set of semi permanent dyes from amazon for something that may or may not become part of my skillset. But I spent $8 total on cheapo yellow + blue and am willing to give it an honest try! If it’s something that works out, sure okay, I’ll invest in supplies but eh, I’m not looking to make dolls with human looking hair -  I far prefer working with saran and using gradients for that glossy fantasy hair look.

Dye experiments on cotton sashiko thread. I am so pleased with the madder pink color and the more I look at the purple the more I like it.

I used the completely wrong mordant (aluminum potassium sulphate) for cellulose fibers because it was what I had on hand. It worked great for the silk I dyed so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After the unsuccessful smoothie method outlined in previous post, I tried the 'direct method' from Turkey Red Journal:

"Chop small branches and leaves and put them into a glass container, fill with water to the very top and seal with an air tight lid. Leave to soak for 48 hours in a warm sunny position.

Strain carefully, removing all the foliage, trying not to introduce any oxygen. Carefully return the liquid to the jar. Put it in a warm sunny position and introduce skein which has been pre-wetted. Leave the skein in the liquid for 20 minutes.

Remove the skein carefully, again trying not to introduce any oxygen. Hang it exposed to the air for 20 minutes, by which time it should have turned a pale blue.

Repeat the above procedure until the shade of blue required has been achieved or there is no further colour change."

I used the dyebath and previously strained leaves from the unsuccessful smoothie attempt, leaving out in the sun for approx 72 hours.

Again, there was no characteristic colour change upon contact with oxygen, and my theory is that there is not enough indican present to create the desired effect. The colour is pale brown bordering on yellow, and I'm interested to see if i can get a green in future.

Next time i want to try this process with leaves picked after a low rainfall period, and use a high ratio of leaves to fibre.

Collected Indigofera australis (austral indigo) with E from ANU campus on 26th September 2021. SE Australia is in a wet rainy cycle at the moment, so many big prolific bushes in flower!

My first time using I. australis, I decided to experiment with the leaves several different ways.

Modern dye techniques often use a very alkaline dyebath for indigo, which is toxic and cannot be disposed of via domestic sewerage. In my textile practice I wish to pursue low impact methods, meaning that I want to find an alternative to the high alkaline conventional method (even though the results were stunning and a lot of fun). The next few posts will document the results of these different experiments.

I. australis contains indigotin, the same blue molecule as other Indigofera plant species from Europe and Asia, so it follows that techniques developed for other species of Indigofera might work with I. australis. I read this very useful blog documenting one dyer’s experiments using I. australis using a Japanese ‘direct’ method: https://www.gumnutmagic.com/dyeing-with-australian-indigo/

They were following the method documented here: https://www.thedogwooddyer.com/blog/2019/8/25/fresh-leaf-indigo-experiments-at-john-marshalls-studio

https://www.thedogwooddyer.com/blog/2014/9/27/fresh-leaf-indigo-dyeing

These blogs said it’s best to use the plants on the same day that they’re picked, so I rushed to complete the process before dinner! I made a delicious smoothie out of indigofera leaves, using iced water to keep things cold. I strained the leaf bits out and dipped a skein in it for a couple of minutes before exposing to air, repeating the process several times. As I understand it, the indigotin molecule needs to be exposed to oxygen to bond with fibre, so a process of dipping in a dye vat and exposing to air made sense to me.

Nothing much happened. There was no telltale colour change when the fibre was exposed to oxygen. The greenish result in the final picture washed out immediately. I’ve got several theories about this – next time i will pick the indigofera in the early morning after a period of low rainfall, and use a very high ratio of indigo leaves to fibre, at least 2:1.