DES303 - Week 4: Prototyping Experiments
- Emma
- Apr 1
- 8 min read
This week I planned for some fabric dyeing experiments and was able to execute two of them. I will use the Integrated Reflective Cycle to reflect (Bassot, 2013).
the experience
I started by looking over the experiment ideation I had done in class and chose some of the technologies I was interested in playing with.
I was really interested in trying to bleach fabric, and also try to dye fabric using food. I did preliminary research into it, and looked at a couple of tutorials. Nikki from The Knotted Nest (2020) and Melissa from Woods and Wool (2019) had some interesting blogs on using black beans and avocado skins as dyes. These are readily available to me, and so decided to try and use them to experiment.
I defined my experiment plan further by figuring out what the focus was. I wanted to explore bleaching and hand dyeing fabric by conducting experiments to better understand the possibilities of hand dyeing. I listed out some possible challenges such as sourcing materials second hand, and the amount of time it takes to create suitable dyes. I did end up having an issue with this because of a mistake I made which I explain later on in the black bean section.
bleach
I found a linen shirt, some jeans, and polyester pants for the bleach experiments. I also wanted to try making potato stamps to see whether that could work to create a repeatable pattern. Unfortunately the bleach didn't react at all with the polyester (can see this on the time lapse videos). Although, I wonder if soaking it in a bleach and water bath for multiple hours would have an effect. It also barely reacted with the linen shirt, only where the bleach was layered on heavily, which I fear will damage the fabric. It worked really well on the jeans,producing a yellowy colour against the green material. I was able to try out different ratios of water to bleach (1:1, 2:1, 3:1) and no surprise that the 1:1 ratio came out the clearest. Most of the stamps worked to a certain extent. I found that the stamps that were created by cutting away the potato (like the stripes, and the star shape) came out much cleaner than the stamps I had created my carving out in the potato with a pen (like the spiral). I think this is because when I was carving, the surface became more uneven, and also that these designs were more complex.
I was trying to understand how the bleach affected the different fabrics, and whether I could create a crisp print with the potato stamps. I assumed that all of the fabrics would definitely bleach, but this was not the case at all and left me feeling a bit dissapointed and meant I could really only work on the jeans. Also, because the linen reacted much slower than the jeans, I assumed that it wasn't going to bleach at all. I was inpatient with waiting and put it to the side. I think if I had waited, taken a break and came back to it I would've been able to experiment more with it and further understand how the bleach reacts with the linen. I feel the same way about the polyester. Because I was more focused on creating prints, I didn't stop to think that I could soak the polyester for a longer time and see what happened. I was feeling rushed because I was also working on the avocado dye bath as well, and had already spent time trying to get the black beans to work. This left me feeling stressed and like I wasn't doing enough because I was unable to complete one of my experiments. I wanted to try all these different things, and then once things started going wrong, I was frustrated with myself for not doing more extensive research in preparation. But I am also glad that I got to learn hands on how the bleaching process works. I feel like learning through doing gives me greater understanding, even if it means experiments not working out as expected. After talking to my flatmates, they gave me positive feedback and were impressed with how much I did. I think I forget that sometimes I can just focus on one thing at a time, and that is still 'enough'.
Avocados
I used a thrifted silk shirt, and some 100% cotton yarn I already owned that was stained. The avocado skins I picked out of my compost bin (thank you flatmates!). This method is not as time consuming as the black beans, but it does require heat to draw out the colour. I boiled the skins for 2 hours in water, until it was a deep pink/brown colour. I simmered the fabric and yarn in the dye for 4 hours on a low heat, and then turned the heat off and left it to soak for 24 hours. I did not agitate the yarn enough, and so some of it stuck to the bottom and burnt a little bit. I think the burnt pieces would come off in the washing machine, but I was afraid of putting the yarn into the machine before crocheting it.
I was surprised by the colour difference between the silk and cotton. After rinsing out the dye, the cotton was left a soft blush colour, whereas the silk maintained a dark rust even after washing. A positive about using avocados, is that they contain tannins (a mordant that helps dye to adhere and stay), meaning I didn't have to add anything to the dye bath. I wonder if using some kind of fixative would help to adhere the dye better to the plant fibres. I also wonder if I could paint the dye on in a more specific pattern and if that would adhere properly as it wouldn't be able to soak as thoroughly.
Like I said earlier, I was working on the bleach experiments at the same time, meaning I didn't stir the yarn as much as I should have, causing it to stick to the bottom. I assumed that the dye would adhere different amounts between the silk and cotton, but I wasn't expecting such a drastic colour difference and so was pleasantly surprsed by the variation. I felt really proud of this experiment because I was able to use resources I mostly had at home, like the avocado skins and cotton yarn, and that the experiment actually worked on both fibres compared to the bleach experiments.
black beans
From my original scanning of tutorials of dyeing with black beans, I thought I could use cream of tartar as a mordant to help the dye fix to the fibres. I was wrong however, and actually a metallic mordant is needed for it to work. I had spent 2 days soaking the beans in water, and when dyeing day came I realised that it wasn't going to work. The mordant most people reccomend is a mixture of alum (aluminum sulfate or aluminum sulfate) and cream of tartar as this produces vibrant blues. This was out of my budget though, and so I had to pivot. I also found out that you could collect the iron from rusty nails by soaking them in vinegar. My flatmate just so happened to have a whole plate of rusty nails, however it takes many days to work dissolve the iron, and so I will revisit this next week!
theory
I have learned that bleach reacts differently to different fibres. When doing further research, I have found that dyes in polyester are often resistant to oxidisation, and therefore resistant to bleaching (Chandye, 2025). However, it has also made me realise that the bleach may damage the fibres without any noticable visual change. I originally thought that the fibre type was the most important factor, but have realised that because bleach is oxidising the dyes adhered to the fibre, it is more important to consider the dyes used, however when buying garments and fabrics there is rarely information given about what dyes are used.
When it comes to dyeing fabric, there are multiple factors that need to be taken into account such as the amount of dye, the type of water, the type of mordant or fixative as well as the type of fibre. I did some research into plant dyes and their affinity for protein fibres (from animals) and cellulose fibres (from plants) and found that protein fibres do indeed have more dyability, and will dye darker than cellulose. For example, a study on dyeing cotton and wool using avocado skins by Nazli Üren (2022), shows the difference in colour below. Like my experiments, it found that protein fibres dye darker concluding that they have a higher affinity for plant dyes. It also seems that using an iron mordant changes the colour significantly, creating a more earthy brown.
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