cabbage and hibiscus

I seem to play with something everyday.  Lately, when I dye fabric, I have been wishing to do something that is a bit more friendly to me.  Many of the mordants are not people friendly.  It is the stuff that helps dye set in fabric.  I have been seeing people use soy milk.  So I figured why not.  Soybeans are fairly inexpensive and they compost.  I may not like the smell but that is not a big deal.

I set a cup of soybeans to soak for a couple days.  Put them in a blender with a bit of water.  Blended for about 5 minutes.  Strained the liquid off of them and added more water.  I needed enough liquid to soak the fabric I wanted to use.  This first time I heated the soy milk with the fabric in it.  I decided that was a mistake.  Soybean when heated can leave waxy spots.

Those are the dark spots on the fabrics.  The cotton silk piece picked up more of the wax then 100% silk bits.  Since this was a first pass, I am going to use this piece for me.  I have some slips I need to make since I have ones falling apart.  I am working with a hibiscus dye pot where I did not eat the soy milk and that seemed to make difference.  

This dye pot was red cabbage and hibiscus.  It seemed to make a grey with blue tones.  The piece that I added iron to became a grey teal.  They are very pretty.  I have started to use the ribbons already.

I like this play.  The ribbons I am making are really nice on my slips.  More experiments to happen in the future.