On the journey of artisans - Part 2

The beauty of eco-printing

Guest pen post

I have always admired eco-printed products, they are attractive to me with their beauty and closeness to nature, and I can say that when I tried eco-printing for the first time myself, I was blown away. Dyeing with natural dyes starts with collecting plants and flowers from nature, which is where your own unique eco-printed product actually gets its idea and origin. The dyes from plants and flowers are then transferred into colors and patterns on fabric in, for example, your own home kitchen, and thus your own unique product eco-printed from nature's products is ready for use.

Ecoprinting is full of surprises. This surprising nature actually only brings more excitement and interest to bio-dyeing, the end result of which nature decides what it wants to give at any given time. There are often surprises with plants, so it's worth taking a relaxed approach to ecoprinting and enjoying what you're doing, because as a process you can't fully control it anyway. Chances and creativity must therefore be given room, so all in all, ecoprinting as a technology is very exciting and interesting.

About ecoprinting

As spring progresses, nature increases its supply and gives ecoprinters a lot of opportunities. Spring and summer are the golden age of the ecoprinter when it comes to plant leaves and flowers. At the end of summer, the leaves of the plants don't show much color anymore, but e.g. the leaves of the kielo show their color only after they fade in the fall. I've also gotten wonderful eco-prints on fabric even in the fall from dried up flowers of horsma, so you should just throw yourself into your experiments with curiosity.

The formation of eco-printed patterns is influenced by many factors, e.g. the time of year the plant was collected, where it was collected and even the moisture content of the soil. Dried plants can also be used for ecoprinting, but the plants must be soaked before using them. In summer, it is worth drying plants for winter ecoprinting, on the other hand, plants can also be found in flower shops all year round. The final result of the dyeing is also affected by the depressants and the material to be dyed.

Natural material fabrics are the best for eco-printing. Thin cotton and linen fabrics are perfect for this dyeing technique, as are silk and wool fabrics. Colored fabrics can also be printed. Small fabrics are well suited to this technique, and large fabrics cannot be properly ecoprinted unless it is possible to steam them with industrial equipment.

In order to fix the dyes, the fabrics often have to be disassembled with a disassembly agent (e.g. powdery alum that can be soaked). Such a release agent acts as an auxiliary agent to transport the plant dye to the fibers of the fabric and to keep the dye in the fabric. Some plants themselves have nature's own laxatives (e.g. nettle). Without purettes, designs printed with plants will be faint, and they will fade even more or disappear completely in the wash.

Color fastness in ecoprinting is the same as when dyeing with plants in general.

Among the plants, the strongest pattern and tones are given by the leaves of the eucalyptus trees. Of the Finnish plants, I myself noticed in my experiments that a birch leaf and an upright dried and pressed horsma flower gave the best prints.

In spring and early summer, good plants are honeysuckle, raspberry, honeysuckle, geranium, folded leaf, blackberry, strawberry and honeysuckle. Summer plant options also include oak, peony, maple and aquileum and rose petals. At the end of summer, you should try the scurvy rose, sedge and sedge quince, dahlia, pansy, black-eyed senna, goldenrod, cosmos flower, fairy dress and velvet rose. On the other hand, any natural material that contains dyes will also release them, so by curiously experimenting you can get many kinds of interesting prints on different fabrics.

Briefly about eco-printing technology

Plant patterns on fabrics are made as follows. Washed and moistened fabric is disassembled either with alum or soy milk (soaked in alum water or painted wet with soy milk). You can get a stronger impression of the plants by dipping them in iron water before placing them on the canvas. The print result is always darker the more iron is used.

After the plants have been spread on the fabric, the fabric is placed on top of the auxiliary fabric, moistened, folded and rolled tightly. The roll is tied tightly before the actual printing. The fabric rolls are steamed for 1.5-2 hours, e.g. in a pot with a grate, a juicer is also perfect for this. After the fabrics have cooled, the plants are removed. The fabric is washed after a week at the earliest.

Eco-printed fabrics are used

If you don't like the ecoprints, you can always renew the treatment. Also by adding other techniques to the fabric, e.g. embroidery or another fabric, you can make the fabric interesting. Eco-printed fabrics can be used as beautiful utility items, or eco-printed fabrics can be combined with other fabrics or works. Here are some of my works for which I have used my own eco-printed fabrics.

Eco-printing of chicken eggs

In addition to fabrics, you can eco-print, for example, eggs. Since boiled eggs are eaten, organic colors suit them perfectly. Because of this, the colors don't have to last long either. I've tried tangerine peel, fir tree decoction, coffee and lemon peel as dyes for eggs. For the boiled eggs, I used plant leaves and coffee beans for eco-printing, the plants stayed on the surface of the egg by tying them with a nylon stocking.

By eco-printing the beauty of nature into everyday life

I personally consider eco-printing to be one of the interesting techniques for natural dyes. The method can easily be implemented in your own kitchen, because the materials used in eco-printing do not require separate working spaces. And what's most wonderful, eco-printed fabrics always retain their own unique atmosphere, which is timeless and naturally beautiful, all year round.

For several years, I have written articles about handicrafts in my blog Värikäs Kädenjälki . In my article Ecoprinting's surprising results and experiments, you will find instructions for ecoprinting and lots of pictures of my own ecoprinting and experiments.

With the search term ecoprinting, you can also find an article about ecoprinting chicken eggs, a linen jacket and ecoprinting my dress. You can find the instructions for the belt bag with the keyword belt bag, needle storage (also crochet hook and thread storage) storage with the keyword.

I have also written an article about dyeing with food waste, which is dyeing with natural colors with food leftovers and waste. If you want, you can read it here .

I hope that this article will also inspire you to try this wonderful and surprising eco-printing.

Tuija, author of the Värikäs Kadenjälki blog

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