Eco-Dyeing with Cabbage - My Work

I'd been reading about the dye properties in cabbage recently so I wanted to try it out.  So I twisted and folded up some misc. pieces of linen, silk and string to see what I could get.

I chopped up some cabbage into fairly fine pieces and boiled it for about 45 mins. to an hour.

This is what the cabbage looks like when all the dye has been stained out, just a tiny bit of color still there.

I took 1/2 the dye along with a few pieces of cabbage and added vinegar to it and it turned the purple dye to a beautiful shade of pink/magenta above, and you can see below how it stained the  linen embroidered tablecloth.

The other 1/2 of the dye I added a bit of slat to and it turned a gorgeous shade of blue-violet.

I also had a silk scarf that I had put in a eucalyptus bath, so I refolded it and stuck it into the bluer dye shade, and I was really pleased with the outcome.

Above are some linen strips that I put into both the pink and the blue, and below are some cotton and linen/silk embroidery string that I felt came out really well.

I also had another silk scarf  that I'd dyed in an ornamental plum vat, and wanted to see what would happen if I put it in the cabbage.  I was very pleased with these results as well.

The only bummer is that when these dry out and are laundered, the color isn't as rich looking as when they are wet.  Oh well, just have to do a bit more experimenting.