Tucked into the base of Pikes Peak, Manitou Springs, Colorado (the city where I live) has been a tourist town since the late 1870's when visitors discovered the sacred waters that native Americans had been drinking for years. The founder of Manitou, Dr. William Bell, envisioned a spa town with fresh mountain air and healing waters. Many of these effervescent springs still function today, and there are those who still swear by their healing powers. Me, I think the water tastes gross. As a 22 year resident of the city, I have yet to acquire a taste for it.
This summer I finally have gotten around to using it with my natural dyeing experiments. For my first experiment I used red onion skins and water from six of the functioning springs and the solar dyeing technique. I used equal amounts of skins and water and left the jars for an equal amount of time out in the sun. Then I removed the skins and added a small swatch of white silk fabric to the dye and let it sit for 24 hours. See the photograph for my results.
Water from the 7 Minute spring yielded results close to tap water. (Tap is top upper right hand corner, 7 Minute spring is below it. All the other waters yielded a khaki color with slight variations probably not visible in this photo. Two of the swatches have a slight greenish tinge. Water from these two springs contain copper and calcium which I think is the reason for the green. The spring with the most amount of iron (3rd one down on the right) yielded the most neutral khaki. Next one down has a rosy tint to it. 
All of the springs are alkaline and contain varying amounts of calcium, chloride, copper, fluoride, iron, lithium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, silica, sodium, sulfate and zinc. I know that calcium, copper and iron will affect my dye results but I'm not sure about any of the other minerals. Any information, thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
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This is great Peggy! I really love the chemistry and alchemy part of the dyeing and eco-rpinting and your experiemnt adds both to the "science" and to the mystery!
ReplyDeleteyes, this brings out the science geek in me.
DeleteGreat experiment, Peggy. It is a perfect example of why dyers and printers should know the kind of water they are starting out with. Chemical elements in your local make all the difference in the world. You have picked up on the color changes caused by different chemicals by accident, and I think you should do the Gerber Assessment Method mentioned in India's book "Eco Color". This will give you a strong base from which to best utilize your materials and to help you achieve the goals you set out for. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteThanks, James. I had forgotten about that test. Will reread that section and proceed.
DeleteI confess to knowing nothing about the effects of minerals in the water on dye-pot results, but your samples are lovely! Just think -- water, sunshine, fabric -- no additional mordants required. Wow!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Margaret. It's been fun experimenting.
DeleteFascinating results and well worth researching further. Thanks for sharing this, Peggy: the more research we do, the better, a great way to build a library of colours.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Arlee.
ReplyDeleteHi Peggy,
ReplyDeleteFascinating! I just put up a post on our Botanical Colors Facebook page linking to you here. We're excited to follow what you come up with all your dyeing experiments!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Botanical-Colors/137172583007495
Thank you very much, Amy. I appreciate the link.
ReplyDeleteThis is fascinating! I'm sure bunches of us will go scoop up water samples from various sources now. At least I hope I will.
ReplyDelete