Autumn Prints

With fallen leaves all around and plenty of  rainwater, I have been making some hot bundles and enjoying the subtlety of their prints.

Contact printing with eucalyptus leaves.

I have been having a lot of fun contact printing with eucalyptus leaves. The photos are of a woollen suit from a charity shop. Eucalyptus leaves have an affinity with animal fibres so wool or silk work really well. I also did some prints on linen and cotton fabrics. Linen and cotton require a mordant to allow the print to take, I experimented with a cow’s milk mordant which worked well on the linen, but less well on cotton. I learnt everything I know about this technique from my friend Mary, she has a fantastic blog http://localandbespoke.com/ if you would like to see some more interesting examples. The beauty of this way of printing is that no inks or dyes are used, it is the plant itself that prints onto the fabric. The basic technique is to sandwich leaves between fabric, roll it tightly around a piece of iron, bind with string and simmer in a large pot. The garment shown here spent two hours in a big pot of almost boiling rainwater. I allowed it to dry and then put through a cold wash. The leaves I used here were fresh Eucalyptus Scoparia.

Contact printed woollen top

Contact printed woollen skirt

Contact printed woollen top.