Today we did the Biodyes. To do so, we choosed one animal and one vegetable fiber and cut them into 8 pieces. We chose to work with 8 pieces of one fiber because this is a good basis to compare the results.

I decided to use alpacawool and linen. The alpacawool consists of 80% alpaca, 14% virgin wool and 6% polyamide. After cutting these fibers into 8 pieces, I put tags onto the fibers, to make them recognizable. Then I had to wash the fibers in seperate pots for one hour. The animal fiber was washed with some warm water and soap. The vegetable fibers, were cooked in a pot with two packages of backing soda.

Meanwhile, I prepared the dyes.For this, I used carrots, which I grated. Then I cooked the grates for roundabout one hour. Because of the big amount of carrots, I had two beakers. The first beaker was filled with 200g of carrots and 300 ml water and the second with 550g carrots and 400 ml distilled water.

After this, I divided the 8 pieces of each fiber into two groups of the same size. One half of the group was cooked with the mordant tartaric acid and the other half directly with the dyes. I let the fibers simmer in the dyes for 30 minutes and let them stay in the liquids over night.

At home I put three of both fibers into iron liquor. I had three pieces because I worked in a group with Pia and Laura. To get this liquor, I bought iron tablets and put them into water until they dissolved. Then I put the fibers into this liquids ofr 24 hours. Because I was not satisfied with the results, I simmered one piece of the vegetable fibers after the 24 hours.

On 19th October, I did the same procedure for the fibres soaked in the mordant bath.

The pictures below give you some impressions of our biodyes :)