Beetroot Dye

Today we are going to try to make dye using beetroot.
The method is the same as with the purple cabbage so we will need water, a pot and to boil the beetroot.

We think that beetroot will make

Flynn C., Shakyia , Ella & Daniel thinks  green
Taegyn and Brooke think red / purple
Flynn NS & Jacob think blue

We chopped up the beetroot and added the water.  We noticed that the juice coming out when we were cutting was very red - like blood.  

When we added the water before boiling the water went red too.

We dyed a piece of fabric which showed us that beetroot would colour red.

Unfortunately our colour potion has sat in the classroom over the week and has now begun to grow mould.  We have decided to let the mould keep growing to see what happens. We also want to look at the mould under the microscope.

Hopefully we will be able to take some photos of the mould and share them with you.

Jacobs handprint after cutting the beetroot!

Natural Dyes

We have found lots of resources that show us how to make dyes from vegetables, fruit and other sources of vegetation.

So ..... we experimented!

Today we have chopped up purple cabbage we have to boil it in water for about an hour then strain it.

This is meant to make a blue coloured dye.

We could see colour on the knife it looked like it was going to be purple.  So we put it onto some paper to see if it would stay purple or change. We noticed that it turned blue as it dried.  We also noticed that bits of cabbage left on the chopping board changed to blue too.

When we started to boil the cabbage we were able to see the water changing colour really quickly.  We tested it on paper and it made light blue.

After boiling for longer we got a very dark blue dye.

We stored this dye for a week in a dark cupboard.  When we got it out today (Monday 26th Aug) we found that it had changed colour again, to a reddie purple.
We are going to try dying some fabric and see what colour it stays.

While we were dying the fabric we decided to try different mordants.

                   


No Mordant                                           We tired - Salt                                    We tried - Soda Ash

We now know that mordants have an effect on the colour of the dye.

During term 3 the students and I are going to be looking at natural and synthetic dyes.  To start with we are going to be experimenting with different commercial dyes, looking at how they work, the different techniques for dying and how they are applied to different fabrics.  Then the fun bit...

we are going to find our own materials and create our own dye.  There are lots of items in our natural environment, such as lichens, onion skins, fruit skins and barks that can be used to create dye.  We will then get to apply these dyes on the same type of materials that we used with commercial dyes and compare the results.  

We will also take some time looking at traditional use of natural materials to achieve a range of colours, and explore why some colours are more valued than others.