How to ecoprint a t-shirt!
Take the cloth you want to dye – natural fibers like cotton, linen, wool and silk work best, but also polyamide! It it's new, it's good to wash it first to get rid of any surface treatments on the cloth.
Then you'll need mordant for your fabric: alum and tannins for cellulose fibers, or just alum for protein fibers. Mordanting will help the print stick to the fabric and stay vibrant! To pre-mordant, simply dissolve the mordant into hot water and dip your cloth in it. To calculate how much mordant you need, simply weigh your dry cloth and divide by ten.
After mordanting, you can let your cloth dry or simply wring it and continue to the next step. Using wet cloth will result in a more watercolour-like print, as the dyes spread a bit. For crisper prints, it's better to use dry cloth.
Next you'll need plant stuff! Most green stuff will give yellowish hues, but there are some plants that are special dye plants. Do your research or experiment! (I used dyers chamomille, st. john's wort and some purpleish plants that I'm hoping will give red.) Some kitchen scraps like onion skins, and some mushrooms (eg. surprise webcap) are also commonly used! You can use fresh or dried plants. Arrange them on your cloth in whatever pattern you like! I'm folding my shirt in half to get a mirrored print, so I placed some flowers facing up and some facing down, but generally you'll want to place the flower face down and leaves face up!
Then it's time for wrapping up your cloth! You'll need another fabric or plastic to cover the cloth and something solid to wrap your fabric around, like a stick, some rulers or a piece of pipe. A rolling pin can be helpful in getting the plants flat against the fabric before wrapping. I used a big glass jar, like so!
Place the other fabric or plastic on top of your cloth and roll tightly! Tie the roll with some scrap yarn so it stays tight and finally wrap it in a towel. If you want a background colour, you can use a transfer cloth that's dipped in dye in place of the plastic or other fabric.
Next this roll will be steamed to get the colours from the plants into the cloth. A big kettle and small flower pot upside down work well, if you don't want to sacrifice a juicer. I used a bucket, a styrofoam box and an elecric kettle to save energy. Let it steam for 1,5 hours. If your cloth and plants were dried, it will take longer.
Once it's steamed, let it cool completely. Then it's time for the reveal! Dry and iron, wear and hand-wash.
I'll post the finished shirt once it's ready!
