Natural dyed silk fabric

All though I´m really should be writing on my final thesis to finish my archeaology studies I couldn´t stop my self from trying to dye on silk fabric. Mikkel and I have been collecting onion shells for a while and there were now a big pile of shells. I know that the dye stitchs really well on wool and gives a great colour. And when I stumbled on this guys flickr I just had to try dyeing on silk.

So I found some white silk that I have bought at a tailor on sale and gave it a mordant (alun). The mordant water and the fabric was moved a lot. Then I made the colour water and after an hour of boiling it was ready for the fabric. I removed the onion shells and but in the fabric. The piece was about 1 m. The colour was on the fabric right away and during the next hour is stured all the time.

The result and the colour is amazing! It was much easier to dye on silk than I thought and I´m for sure going to make more silk during this summer.

This picture is taken in our livingroom and the light is not to good.


Here you can see the white silk and the plant dyed silk.