Second Thursday Tutorial: a continuation of dyeing fabric using cabbage and other kitchen items

This is a very long tutorial, or at least it seems to me it is.

Here are the supplies I plan to use (from left, back to front):
Baking soda
Chip brush 
Ammonia
Salt
Baking powder
Distilled water
Various cotton and cotton blend fabrics
Bleached muslin, 2 yards
Cheat sheet
Disposable gloves (lined with powder)

Salt added to tap water.

Cheesecloth that needs to be washed.
 Fabric that will cook in salt water (salt is the fixative, similar to a mordant) in the microwave for 20 minutes, as opposed to an hour on a hot stove.

Once muslin has been treated, it is ready to be used in a project.  These carrots are well past their prime, and I didn't feel uncomfortable donating them to this project.

Here they are wrapped in cheesecloth.

Once cooked, I squeezed out the excess water from the carrots.

The expected color is orange, but this isn't even worth losing fabric over.  Thank goodness I didn't use distilled water, either.  I'm starting out on a rather sad note.

Did you notice that the cheesecloth that held the carrots didn't change colors, either?

I've also added a couple of products to use with the cabbage.  One is rice vinegar.  It's brand new, but I'm sure I'll never use it for its intended use, so why not use it for art!

The items at the back of the table are modifiers.  A modifier, unlike a mordant, does not create a bond between the fiber and the dye.  It simply “modifies,” or changes the color, usually through a chemical reaction that occurs with changes in pH.  That's why I decided to use distilled water so all the modifiers would start from the same pH level.  The modifiers I plan to use are vinegar, ammonia, baking soda, and baking powder.

The other is my jar of rusty chain.  The rusty water is called rust liqueur, and can act as a mordant.  Fixatives and mordants are a bit different, in that a fixative is used on cotton and linens to help set the dye so the natural fiber doesn't lose color over time.  Salt is the fixative I used to treat my cotton muslin.

Mordants influence the color of the finished product. Copper, tin, alum, and rust liqueur are all mordants.  These form a bond between the dye and the fiber.  A majority of natural dyes won’t bind directly to the fiber.   You may get some color from natural dyes, but they will not be color fast.  A mordant, like a fixative, acts as the link between the dye and the fiber.

My cheesecloth

and my cotton fabric are now ready to accept

(my not yet prepared bleached muslin) the cabbage dye.

Granted, there is less cabbage than before, but still an ample amount for what I need.  I can't believe this cabbage has lasted at least a month and not gone bad.

Instead of tearing it, this time I sliced the cabbage.

After that, I chopped it further

and further.

I corralled all those bits of cabbage and encased them in cheesecloth.

I gathered the rest of my supplies

which included a 1/4 cup of salt and distilled water.   As I explained before, in order to keep the cabbage water pH neutral, I chose to cook the cabbage in distilled water.  The modifiers would all stand an equal chance of "modifying" the cabbage since I started with neutral water.  No matter where you live, or how pure your tap water is, it is bound to have some impurities and salts in it that will ultimately affect the outcome of this experiment.

You can cook your cabbage over a hot stove for at least an hour in a metal pot (remember mordants?) that will ultimately change the outcome of these experiments, or you can cook the cabbage in a glass bowl in the microwave for 20 minutes.  Your choice.  You know mine!

Once cool enough to handle, squeeze as much water out of the encased cabbage as possible.  I don't "squeeze" well, but I tried.  As an aside, I've never found disposable gloves that fit.

Now it's time to dye.  Place fabric that has been fixed with salt to the dye bath.

While the dye bath was cooking for 20 minutes in the microwave, or an hour on the stove, I spent that time getting all the cabbage out of the cheesecloth and rinsing it.   Be sure to place your spent cabbage in your compost pile.  That's even more important if you have used a mordant like iron, tin, or copper.

I was hoping the cabbage would change the muslin and the piece of cotton/poly bed sheet in the dye bath, but I had to wait until the fabric had dried.

It's amazing how different fabrics take this cabbage dye bath so differently.  The cheesecloth looked blue against the white fabric I laid down for comparison.  The cotton/poly bed sheet on the left, which I had stamped at some point looked better than the bleached muslin on the right.

Next, I siphoned off some of the dye bath and added baking soda, my first modifier.

It was supposed to turn the fabric blue, or at least enhance the blue in the dye.

Ah, now that it's cooked, it looks wonderful.  I can't wait for it to cool, so I can wash and dry it.

While waiting for the baking soda fabric to cool, I siphoned off a bit more of the dye bath

and added some rice vinegar to the bath.

The vinegar was supposed to turn the dye bath a lovely pink color.  So far, so good.

The next experiment started with a bit of the cabbage dye bath

to which I added baking powder.  It was supposed to fizz and it obviously did.

Another lovely shade of blue, but this time with a touch of teal.

More dye bath was added to another bowl

and clear ammonia was added to the bath.  Look at this change in color.  This is exciting.

This fabric, like all the others, was cooked in the microwave for 10 to 20 minutes*.  I just hope I don't lose a lot of color, because I love this yellow green.

*The "powder" modifiers needed a shorter amount of time since they absorbed so much of the liquid dye bath.  The "liquid" modifiers got the full 20 minutes.

Here are the results of my experiments.  The baking soda turned brown.  The reason some of it is purple is because I accidentally hung it too close to the pure cabbage dyed fabric while it was still wet.

Once dry, that lovely yellow green I got in the bowl was now brown.

I still had a tiny bit of the bath left.  I debated using baking soda or ammonia again.

In the end, I chose baking soda.  Isn't it lovely?  I even added a piece of old hankie that I suspect was mostly cotton.

It didn't matter.  When dry, I got the same results as I did the first time.  The baking soda dyed fabric was still brown!

As they sat on my kitchen table, all my fabrics turned lovely colors that I didn't see before.  Look at how the teal from the baking powder dyed fabric has become mottled with lavender.

Everything had changed, albeit some only slightly.

Ruminations:
1.  I tried to control the pH by using distilled water.
2.  I tried to control the mordant by using glass bowls.
3.  The colors changed over time as they dried or sat on my kitchen table.

Was this a success?  You tell me.  I know for a fact, these modifiers changed the color of the original cabbage dye bath, sometimes fairly significantly.  If you judge the difference based on the color of the modified dye bath alone, it was a HUGE success.  If you judge this on the completed and dried fabrics, only time will tell.  I assure you I will be using these in my art quiltlets and visual journal covers, if only as backgrounds to aid the focal image or images.

Thank you beyond belief for sticking with me today.  This took over five days to finish, six if you count the failed carrot experiment.  I greatly appreciate your visit and hope this was helpful to those of you who enjoy dyeing fabric using veggies like cabbage.

Once this post goes live, you will find it on my Tutorials Page under Dyeing Fabric Using Cabbage.