Local natural sustainable colours¶
Wool naturally can have different and bautiful colours, ranging from white, to cream, to browns, greys and beautiful warm blacks. An infite range of coulours can be obttained when bringing together these naturally coloured wools, with dyes created from natural plants.
Within the collective Lab to Lab "wool Mondays" of shemakes, the project branch on Local natural sustainable colours develops an archive of knowledge and captures experiments around wool and natural dyes: through a number of different techniques we create a repository and colour and pattern chart that can grow with its community of practicioners. We look at natural dyeing for wool especially at a lab scale but not only. We look at small decentralised production opportunities, where the local native dyes of each region play a central role, accompanied with modern "waste" streams in city, where waste is seen as resource within a spriral economy.
What has been done until here?¶
Identification of dye steps within the overarching wool chain
image coming soon
A structure for common mapping of the dye processes
Labs experimenting on colour contribute to the shared knowledge pool by recording their own experiments and exchanging knowledge here about. The experiments are clustered by process, then summarized by colour in a shared chart.
Values-driven approach
Together the labs look at a number of sustainable processes, that approach locality and sustainability hand in hand. The research work is values-driven, meaning it looks at sustainability aspects as design criteria to make choices within the research. See below the values-driven approach to define the research on wool and color:
[image value driven approach]
Processes
Different processes work for many different plant dyes, by comparing processes rather than dye plants - the shemakes approach to natural dyeing is shaped by the participating labs collectively. The first processes we identified as interesting for this purpose are
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- simple and traditonal method to start
- sustainable when all discarded parts are re-used, recyled and transformed
- sustaible by exploring local (or locally present) dye plants/materials, harvesting them when possible, growing them
- sustaible when working on local wool, promoting a local chain for production and transformation with the DIY tools of the little wool factory
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- simple and traditonal method to start
- does not require mordants
- sustaible by exploring local (or locally present) dye plants/materials, harvesting them when possible, growing them
- sustaible when working on local wool, promoting a local chain for production and transformation with the DIY tools of the little wool factory
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- for insoluble dyes (such as indigo and woad)
- sustaible when long lasting and kept alive
- sustaible when using leftovers for reduction
- sustaible when growing insoluble dyes
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- for patterns and print transfer on textiles
- sustainable when..
Within the mordant and direct dyes we see a circular process, where all leftovers from the dye bath are being re-used - creating a fully circular process. The process breaks down into 3 major steps: - creation and use of the hot dye bath with plant matter - creation of Lake pigments (the recycling of hot dye baths) - use of lake pigments for wool more information on this can be found on the Fabricademy slides
Initial local research
Labs joining the research can start by identifying local plant dyes, locally growing plants, abundant plant dyes, plant food-waste dyes, etc or identify a process they are interesting in exploring with a number of the different dye plants selected. The template at the bottom of this section can be duplicated to document a new process, specifying the plants used and capturing the results of the chosen technique.