Black Bean Blue

 

 

As seen before in my previous posts Walnut Juice and Oak Gall Soup, I have been experimenting and learning how to use natural materials as fabric dyes and art supplies. While I was researching to make the dyes, I saw mentions of using black beans for a nice blue colour. This intrigued me so much I thought I would try it. It is both easy and fun!

I really like India Flint who does a lot of beautiful and inspiring work.  I also found a couple of good blog posts here and here that helped me get an idea of what to do.  But for the most part, I am 'winging it' which is half the fun!

I began by putting a cup of dried black beans and water in a glass bowl. I let it sit covered for 24 hours and poured the liquid over the fabric (two yards of unbleached muslin – not pre-washed - folded and laying in a rectangle casserole dish) and covered it up. Sorry... no photo of that.

I put more water in the bowl and repeated the soak. After 24 hours the soaking fabric was beginning to get an odour so I transferred the fabric and liquid (old and new) to a metal pot and set it outside. I covered it to keep critters out.

The bean soak was repeated so that there was a total of four 'doses' of liquid. I poured them through a colander and stirred up the fabric each time. I noticed that the fabric nearest the surface was a more greenish colour than the rest so I used a large stone to completely submerse it. Interesting point: each batch of liquid was darker than the one before.

When ready, I pulled the fabric out and spread it evenly on an old door screen. I did this because I had found that, when I hung dyed fabric on my rack, it tended to have variant lines throughout. This time I wanted a more universal color. It was a breezy day and I had to clip it down, but muslin dries quite quickly.

 

A couple of days later, I heat-set with an iron. My heat-set process is always to iron both sides as hot as possible. Then I rinsed in water until there is no (or very little) colour bleed. I use just barely warm water only because the cold hurts my hands. This was wrung out and hung on a rack to dry and then heat-set again.

Here it is before being rinsed. The pretty variations are from the mould that formed in the casserole dish.

The final result:

There is also a small swatch I experimented with first. I had some dinner beans in a slow cooker and after they had been going for a few hours, I put a small piece of fabric in the pot for about an hour and removed. I then processed as I do the rest. It came out a darker bluish brown which I find quite interesting and useful.

Here is a photo of all my recent trials together for comparison. From left to right: 1/ Walnut husks; 2/ Avocado; 3/ Avocado (longer soak); 4/ Black beans soaked; 5/ Black beans cooked.

 

 

Since I had not used the refrigerator, and the process took 5 days, I threw the beans in a corner of my yard. Who knows... maybe they will grow. I also poured the water over my herb plants.

My next natural dye blog will be about using avocado skins and pits. I am working on them now and it is going well. I am also preparing to experiment with pre-treating small pieces of fabric with mordant materials such as soda ash, salt, alum, soy, vinegar, etc. to compare the results. Once I feel I have established a decent rapport with the materials and processes, I will start getting artistic with them! I will use some of the dyed fabrics as surfaces for my creativity.

At some point, I will need to make something with all these fabrics. A quilt maybe? I think a cool looking jacket or shirt would be awesome.