| OK, Jim. |
| You wanted to see me about your textile design project. |
| That's right. |
| I've been looking at how a range of natural dyes can be used to colour fabrics like cotton and wool. |
| Why did you choose that topic? |
| Well, I got a lot of useful ideas from the museum, |
| you know, at that exhibition of textiles. |
| But I've always been interested in anything to do with colour. |
| Years ago, I went to a carpet shop with my parents when we were on holiday in Turkey, |
| and I remember all the amazing colours. |
| They might not all have been natural dyes. |
| Maybe not, but for the project I decided to follow it up. |
| And I found a great book about a botanic garden in California that specialises in plants used for dyes. |
| OK. |
| So, in your project, you had to include a practical investigation. |
| Yeah. |
| At first I couldn't decide on my variables. |
| I was going to just look at one type of fibre for example, like cotton... |
| and see how different types of dyes affected it? |
| Yes. |
| Then I decided to include others as well, |
| so I looked at cotton and wool and nylon. |
| With just one type of dye? |
| Various types, including some that weren't natural, for comparison. |
| OK. |
| So, I did the experiments last week. |
| I used some ready-made natural dyes. |
| I found a website which supplied them, |
| they came in just a few days, but I also made some of my own. |
| That must have taken quite a bit of time. |
| Yes, |
| I thought it'd just be a matter of a teaspoon or so of dye, |
| and actually that wasn't the case at all. |
| Like I was using one vegetable, beetroot, for a red dye, |
| and I had to chop up a whole pile of it. |
| So it all took longer than I'd expected. |
| One possibility is to use food colourings. |
| I did use one. |
| That was a yellow dye, an artificial one. |
| Tartrazine? |
| Yeah. I used it on cotton first. |
| It came out a great colour, |
| but when I rinsed the material, the colour just washed away. |
| I'd been going to try it out on nylon, but I abandoned that idea. |
| Were you worried about health issues? |
| I'd thought if it's a legal food colouring, it must be safe. |
| Well, it can occasionally cause allergic reactions, I believe. |
| So what natural dyes did you look at? |
| Well, one was turmeric. |
| The colour's great, it's a really strong yellow. |
| It's generally used in dishes like curry. |
| It's meant to be quite good for your health when eaten, |
| but you might find it's not permanent when it's used as a dye - |
| a few washes, and it's gone. |
| Right. |
| I used beetroot as a dye for wool. |
| When I chop up beetroot to eat I always end up with bright red hands, |
| but the wool ended up just a sort of watery cream shade. Disappointing. |
| There's a natural dye called Tyrian purple. Have you heard of that? |
| Yes. It comes from a shellfish, |
| and it was worn in ancient times but only by important people as it was so rare. |
| I didn't use it. |
| It fell out of use centuries ago, |
| though one researcher managed to get hold of some recently. |
| But that shade of purple can be produced by chemical dyes nowadays. |
| Did you use any black dyes? |
| Logwood. |
| That was quite complicated. |
| I had to prepare the fabric so the dye would take. |
| I hope you were careful to wear gloves. |
| Yes. I know the danger with that dye. |
| Good. It can be extremely dangerous if it's ingested. |
| Now, presumably you had a look at an insect-based dye? Like cochineal, for example? |
| Yes. I didn't actually make that, |
| I didn't have time to start crushing up insects to get the red colour |
| and anyway they're not available here, |
| but I managed to get the dye quite easily from a website. |
| But it cost a fortune. |
| I can see why it's generally just used in cooking, and in small quantities. |
| Yes, it's very effective, but that's precisely why it's not used as a dye. |
| I also read about using metal oxide. |
| Apparently you can allow iron to rust while it's in contact with the fabric, and that colours it. |
| Yes, that works well for dying cotton. |
| But you have to be careful as the metal can actually affect the fabric |
| and so you can't expect to get a lot of wear out of fabrics treated in this way. |
| And the colours are quite subtle, not everyone likes them. |
| Anyway, it looks as if you've done a lot of work... |