Chapter 772 Plant Printed Dyeing

"Okay, let's start picking leaves! You can also pick some of these grape leaves. I'll tell you which leaves and flowers to pick when we go to the woods later."

"You want grape leaves too? Okay, Ranran, tell us what kind you need and we'll pick them for you."

"I want small, intact leaves. Grape leaves are too big. Just pick a few dozen."

Several people picked dozens of grape leaves and followed Qiao Ran into the woods. According to Qiao Ran's instructions, they picked flowers, plants and leaves of various shapes and colors, and excitedly returned to the village carrying several baskets full of leaves and flowers.

There are several large iron pots in the yard of the silk workshop.

These were specially made by Qiao Ran for cooking glutinous rice soup when the house was built, and now they come in handy again.

Everyone in the dyeing and finishing workshop came out and gathered around a large iron pot.

Because they heard that Qiao Ran was going to teach everyone a new dyeing method called "printing".

As long as it was something taught by Qiao Ran, they knew it would be extremely practical or even amazing, so they all stared at it with great interest.

Qiao Ran explained while doing the operation. She first poured out a basket of leaves and flowers, washed them in a basin of water and shook off the water.

Pour clean water into a large pot and bring it to a boil, then turn off the heat. Put a piece of silk cloth into the pot and soak it for half a quarter of an hour, then wash it with clean water and let it dry until it is half dry.

Qiao Ran asked someone to bring out a large long table, and then spread the half-dried cloth neatly on the table.

She asked everyone to follow her for the next steps.

"Come on, everyone, follow my lead and lay these flowers, plants and leaves flat on the cloth in an alternating pattern. Lay them out nicely, don't lay them out randomly."

Everyone followed her curiously, picking out their favorite flowers, plants and leaves from the basket, carefully spreading them out on the cloth, and arranging them into different shapes.

Soon, the long piece of silk cloth was filled with flowers, plants and leaves.

Qiao Ran took a look. Although it was a bit messy and not very aesthetically pleasing, today’s main purpose was to teach everyone to become familiar with the process, and the others could be trained later!

However, she still found that the poses of several women were much better looking than those of others, and she silently memorized those people's names.

When all the flowers, plants and leaves were placed on the cloth, Qiao Ran took out an old cloth and covered it with it.

Then, he rolled the two folded pieces of cloth from one end of the long table to the other end, tightly rolling them into a long tube.

Next, Qiao Ran led these people to put flowers, plants and leaves on several pieces of cloth in the same way and rolled them into cylinders.

Then, she put the cylinders into a big pot, placed long wooden strips in the pot as a rack, and placed the cloth rolled into cylinders on the rack for steaming.

"Ran Ran, why do we need to steam this cloth? Aren't all the flowers and plants already steamed?"

Someone asked curiously.

Qiao Ran nodded:

"Well, the purpose of steaming is to make the leaves and flowers cooked so that their colors will stick to the fabric. Another reason is that the high temperature steaming can fix the color. The longer the steaming time, the better. It usually takes an hour."

"It takes so long? Wouldn't that be quite a waste of firewood?"

A woman whispered.

Someone immediately laughed and scolded:

"Aunt, why worry about wasting firewood? We live here, and there is firewood everywhere. Are you still worried about this? Isn't this much easier than embroidering stitch by stitch?"

The woman immediately reacted and patted her head gently:

"Look at my brain, it just can't get around! Yes, if I can finish so many pieces of cloth in just over an hour, it will be much easier than embroidery!"