Connor Lucas
Karen Nguyen
PUFY 1100 Sustainable Systems Natural Dyeing Worksheet 2
Water and Materials Experience and Analysis (EA): The Natural Dyeing Exercise
Urban Dyers Almanac – A Record of Your Scientific Method
Type or, carefully, handprint your answers. Use the back or an additional page, as necessary.
Date: 10/2/16
Season: Fall
Predict what plants might be available for sale and list them here:
Mums, pumpkins, squash, lavender, kale, celery, corn
Plant Collected:
Mums (chrysanthemums, 1.5 gallon pot)
Why did you collect this plant for the purpose of creating a natural dye?:
We selected chrysanthemum flowers for the purpose of creating a natural dye because we thought that the
vibrant pink, maroon, and yellow flower petals would create a rich, deep color dye, therefore resulting in
deeply colored wool.
Location Collected (insert image of the plant and location?) Ask the vendor questions about the item you
chose. What is the growing season for the food or plant item? Where is the farm located? Where do the
items come from? Map it.:
Our particular chrysanthemum plant was collected at Lowe’s Home Improvement on 6th Avenue, however
mums are available at a variety of marks and florists. The growing season for the plant is actually spring,
however the flowers don’t bloom until late summer/early fall, which is the cause for their popularity during the
fall season. Mums can be grown in almost all areas of the country as long as they are planted in the spring,
especially if a region is affected by freezing temperatures or frost. If the planting region does not suffer from
frost, the planting window for mums is much greater than that of regions with colder temperatures. Because
of mums’ ability to be grown in a variety of places, the mums we purchased were most likely grown in a farm
in New York State or surrounding states, however the employees were not positive of the origin of our
particular mums.
Provide a map of the region that the plant comes from and pinpoint the farm or sites location on the map.
Attach a copy of the map to this worksheet.
Attached.
Part of the plant used and the amount:
37 full flowers, petals, and buds collected from a 1.5 gallon mum pot.
What do you predict will be the outcome?
We predict that the mums will give both the dye and the wool a dark maroon color, similar to the darkest and
most prominent color of the petals.
Extraction process notes (include reflections on what happens in the process of your analysis):
We began the extraction process by removing all of the full flowers and buds from the plant and placing them
in a Ziplock freezer-size bag. We then sealed the bag tightly and began to slightly crush the flowers and
flower petals through the bag, breaking them up a little bit. Once the flowers were crushed, we boiled them
with water for 1.5 hours, and after letting the mixture cool, we removed all of the flower petals and chunks
using a strainer. Once the dye solution was clear of the flower remains, the extraction process was finished.
Dye Recipe
Material/ WOF: Wool / two (2) ounces (given)
Dye/volume: 10 cups of dye
Mordant/amount (measure given amount using measuring spoons): 1 tablespoon of alum 15%
Additions/amount (What changes did you make? Pull some wool out for each stage of trial):
The first trial used the dye bath alone and the second trail used 1 tablespoon of vinegar, however we didn’t
see a significant change in color after the wool dyed.
Further Recipe Notes:
-There were far more full, whole flowers used than individual buds, of which there were only a few
-The dye looked fairly maroon, red-toned than the wool ended up being
-When the wool was first removed from the dye solution, it had a slight green tone that seems to have
disappeared
-Before drying, the wool’s color was slightly darker than after drying
Reflections about the process (How was this scientific process of extracting color dye similar to the design
process itself? What would you change in a second iteration?):
The scientific process of extracting color dye is similar to the design process in that, no matter how much
planning you do beforehand, you really don’t know what the end result will look like. For example, with dye,
you could begin with a vibrant, colorful plant but have the finished wool end up a dull brown color, similar to
our final product. Adding or subtracting different additives, such as vinegar, can change the final wool color in
the same way that adding paint to another can alter it’s final hue. Dye’s dynamic nature is just as true for
design or art because, as a project moves along, designers might find things to change or improve upon,
changing the final product from it’s outline in the original plan. Similarly, dying wool naturally is near
impossible to repeat with the exact same resulting color, as is the case with design or art. For example, one
may find it extremely difficult to replicate an intricate design over and over or mix the exact same shade of
paint. If we were doing a second iteration of the natural dyeing process, we would try both adding more
vinegar and including other additives in the dye bath to see if those altered the color in a way that the original
vinegar addition did not. We would also try using a different color of chrysanthemums to begin with, such as
orange or yellow, to serif those altered the color in any way.
Attach a piece of the dyed textile