Natural Dyeing

I recently decided it would be fun to learn how to naturally dye fabrics for my costuming class at college. You know, with vegetables and fruits and stuff. Little did I know it would take me on a long and arduous journey, like a labyrinth. Except no minotaurs. I thought I would share some of my experience for those who would like to learn how to dye fabrics without messing up too much.

Things you'll need:
At least 2 large pots (at least large enough to hold lots of dye and your fabric)
Strainer
Vegetables or fruits (I'll get to which ones work well in a second, but get more than you think you'll need just in case)
Pre-washed Fabric (100% cotton, muslin, silk, or wool work best, because synthetics are made not to absorb things)
1-2 Tbsp Alum Powder (you can get this in the grocery store in the spices section)

Step 1:
Choosing your vegetables/fruits
Now, there are a lot of great colors out there in nature, but not all of them will work very well for dyeing things. I'll tell you now that some things just don't get absorbed well, and so if you're looking for brighter colors, you may need to do some research. Here are a few links to help you decide on a material: http://www.pioneerthinking.com/crafts/crafts-basics/naturaldyes.html and http://all-things-shelly.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-use-natural-dyes.html really helped me out.

I started with red cabbages. I bought two heads of red cabbage for this project because I had a lot of fabric.

Step 2: 
Prepare you veggies!
You'll have to chop up your fruits or vegetables to prepare them. For me, it meant chopping up my cabbages into relatively small pieces and tossing them in a large pot. After that, you add water to cover the veggies and then maybe double that, so if you have two inches deep of cabbage, you should have four inches deep of water.

Step 3:
Cooking
Put the large pot on the stove and start to boil the veggies/fruits. Probably don't let it boil the whole time, but turn it down to a simmer and let it sit for about an hour while all the color drains from the plant (some dyes take less time, so just check it until it looks pretty good).
Then you need to strain the plant from the water, which I did by pouring it through a strainer into another large pot but which you can do however you please. This way, you should have just your dye.

Here's what my cabbage dye looked like. As you can see I did not have a particularly large pot so put it into two when I strained it. But then dumped it back into the big one.

Step 4: 
Alum Powder
This is incredibly important and my fatal mistake. In many websites they say to separately soak the cloth in alum and water for an hour, then rinse it out and dump it in the dye. However, this did not work for me at all! I found a site that said that it works better when you put the alum in WITH THE DYE. So here's what you do:
Take a cup, put about a tablespoon of alum powder in it, then fill it will hot water from the tap and let it dissolve. This way you don't get spots like this:

For some reason if alum clumps it will just do weird things... Notice that this is not a very nice color either. I definitely did something wrong, because it was supposed to be a light purple and it turned out gray. This is my first attempt with cabbage.
If you want to know more about alum and what it does, check it out on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alum. I just know it as that stuff that acts as a fixative for dyes.
Anyway, once you've dissolved it into the cup, just add the cup to the dye and mix it up well.

Step 5:
The Fabric
At this point add your fabric to the dye bath. You'll want to swish it around if you have room and make sure it all gets covered with the dye. Here are a few examples:

This one is blackberries

Here we have my second attempt with cabbage and muslin

This is the sadness of the first cabbage bath

This one, surprisingly, is onion skins

So yeah. Try to get it all covered and pretty looking. If it doesn't look like it's taking the dye, it's probably not taking the dye. 

Once you've got all that done, let it sit for at least an hour. I left some of mine in overnight just in case. But you should be fine with an hour or two.

Step 6:

Finishing it up

Once you get the color you want in the dye (which may be a different color than you expected), then take it out and rinse the whole thing out until the water runs clear. I just used the sink because it was big enough, but you can also use a bathtub, which may be easier if you have access to one. Or a shower. Hell, you can use a hose and it will work. I suggest cool water simply because it's easier on the dye and the fabric. 

Once that's done, just hang it up to dry! You could also twist it and leave it to dry that way if you want a different look. There are a lot of cool ways to let things dry. 

Here are my finished products:

 This is the lovely yellow I got from the onion skins

 Here we have my final pieces of fabric, with the yellow onions on the top, the cabbage that worked in the middle, and the blackberries on the bottom.

The best part is you can store the dye you didn't use for later! If you put it in the fridge it won't mold and you can dye eggs or other fabric at a later date. Here's my egg project for Easter!

 The yellow came out a lot lighter on the eggs, but the cabbage is the beautiful medium blue and the dark blues are the blackberries, which I find interesting since they produced more of a reddish color on the fabric. But hey, that's the lesson about dyes: They're always a little different (or a lot different) than you expect them to be.

What do you want to learn how to make?

I thought I might do a sort of how-to of the week (ish. Because I'm not good at doing something every week if I'm super busy), but I was wondering what people might want to learn how to do. I've got a few ideas that I just have to get some pictures for and do it to show you guys step by step how to make something. Or do something in general. Like sew a hem. Or put in a zipper. Or make a pattern. So if anyone has any ideas, tell me. Otherwise I'll just go with it and figure it out as I go along.

I'm a new Project Runway addict

I don't know how I've gone this long without watching this show. If you don't know what Project Runway is, it's a design show. A fashion design show. There are 12 to 20 contestants who are given twenty four hours to create an entire outfit which will be shown on the runway the next day.
Here are a few pictures of the amazing things they come up with:

I'm just absolutely amazed that they can come up with this (in only half an hour or so), and sew it in the next twenty four hours (with at least a bit of time for sleep). I wish I could do this. I started watching it today and immediately got out my sketchbook. Sadly, my sketches do not look good at all yet. I'm still trying to get my own style in sketching (granted, I have only been designing for a year or two and have never been big on the sketch). I'm looking at the sketches on the television and I can picture the actual clothing on someone. That's something to try to work towards for me.

I realize this show is not only dramatic and interesting to watch, but it's pretty inspirational for me. I feel like one day maybe I could do something amazing like that if I work hard with my sewing and take a drawing class or two. Who knows if I have the imagination to create these things, but it would be worth a try just to get better as a seamstress. You know?

So if you haven't seen this show, you like fashion and/or sewing, and you need a little fashion inspiration or entertainment even, I highly suggest this show.

Paris Fashion

I've been in Paris for the past week, leaving tomorrow, and can't keep myself from looking in all the shop windows. The fashion here, although ridiculously expensive (anywhere from seventy to four hundred Euros for a shirt), is really interesting.

Here are a few of the shop windows I found. Sorry about the glare of the windows. I felt awkward going into the shop just to take a picture of the mannequin. I thought that might be rude. But if you can make them out, it's all very interesting!

Sadly it was all very expensive so I did not end up getting any of it. I did, however, find a cute little shop which is not pictured that had things half off for thirty to forty euros. I thought that was a deal, and got a skirt.

So the moral of the story is, if you go to a hoity toity town like Paris or New York, you CAN find less expensive clothes if you keep looking in all the little nooks and corners (though I think in big cities everything will still be a little more expensive than, say, Walmart or Target).

Buttons!

I thought I would start this whole blogging thing out nice and easy by sharing my general opinion on a very broad topic which could go any which way. So. I've chosen buttons. Because you see, buttons can do just about anything. That's right, other than a few minor things such as curing cancer or ending world hunger, buttons have almost limitless possibilities.

"But how?!" you ask. Well, let me tell you. They make everything look better. I know, I know, that doesn't sound quite as grandiose as I had built it up to be. However, it is true, and I'm telling you it could save your wardrobe. Not quite like Superman coming and swooping in, though I would love to see a button swoop in to save the day.

The thing about buttons, is that they are the perfect embellishment for anything and everything. I'm going to keep this blog short and simple for today, because I don't have as much time as I'd hoped, but I will tell you that if a shirt looks boring and sad...

...then put buttons around the collar! Sew them on in an interesting fashion.

See? Look how much happier that shirt looks. Without the buttons, it wouldn't be quite as interesting.

You can also use them, of course, as fasteners, which are nice on all clothes, whether to close a pair of jeans or a waistcoat (some people call it a vest).

Now you know. So go out and save the world by sewing buttons onto things! 

P.S. I promise this is not the only thing I will say on the diverse "button." There are still things to be said about sewing on buttons and kinds of buttons. However, as my first post I thought I might give you my general opinion about buttons and their all-around magnificence. 

The Whole World is Blogging Now, so Why Not Me?

I always wanted to write a blog, but I never knew what to write about. Then I realized: I know some things about sewing! I could share with the world my absolute knowledge of the art of fashion and creation! I could teach both beginners and advanced seamstresses odd tips that will make sewing so much easier than anyone could have imagined!

            Granted, my knowledge is not absolute, nor do I know a lot of the tricks that those who have been sewing for decades know. But I figured I would give it a try, since different people pick up different tips as they venture out and try new things in the art of sewing. And so my mediocre but diverse knowledge of sewing, machines, design, fabrics, etc. is what this blog is to be about.

First, I thought I would introduce myself a bit. My name is Mari. I’ve been sewing for about six years now and have a business called Plaidypus (which is not yet popular enough to come up if you google it, sadly, but if you google Plaidypus Fort Collins, I found out it will come up then!) which I use as a creative outlet to make interesting new things and sell them if I find that I like them. I’m still in small things like headbands and handwarmers and hats currently, but my dream is to get into more clothing and sell it somewhere and perhaps make a bit of extra money from it.

            I don’t have as much time as I’d like to sew since I am a full time student at Colorado College, which does tend to take up a lot of time, but I’ve found that sleep is much less necessary than previously thought! I wouldn’t suggest losing sleep over sewing unless you absolutely love it, though!

            When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer, and so this blog is something that can bring it all together for me, and get me back into writing, as I am rather rusty at the moment.

Enjoy!