How-To Make Natural Dye with the Etsy Labs

What stops the dye from washing out?

great article! I would love to try this someday!

Terrific article. Very clear and easy to follow steps. I've been wanting to do some of my own dyeing and this is a great place to start. Thanks.

Amazing! I need to give this a try! I'm wondering if this will work with plan white cotton flannel :D

Roses and Lavender, with a little mint and some lemon juice to activate the alkaloids can make both a brilliant pink dye and a very tasty pink lemonade. Red onion (skin) (a medium green, lighter than forest green) Turmeric dyed cloth will turn orange or red if it is dipped in lye. But lye is caustic so use extreme caution!!

this is all very enlightening. thank you.

Wow, that's amazing, I must try this soon, thanks for sharing. :o)

Oh I am totally going to do this!

I think I have all of those ingredients and must try this in the morning, but I am wondering what happens to the garment when it is washed. Will it stay true to color or does it fade? Should you wash in warm or cold? just curious.

This is soooo cool! I buy a lot of wool roving for needle felting and have often wondered how the supplies are hand dyed naturally. I have a good amount of natural merino and alpaca roving that I'm going to experiment with now..just hope hubby doesn't stick his head in the pot to take a taste thinking it's my simmering gravy (spaghetti sauce)!!! Thanks so much for this, you have taken away the question and mystery behind this...

Be careful with your wool products. Boiling them causes fulling or felting (unless its superwash wool), so just warm it slowly and keep it below a simmer, then let it cool before removing it. You might also use another mordant, such as Alum or acid. There's lots of great resources on the subject of dying wool. Whether the color fades or remains true varies depending on the pigment compound. Some do, some don't. You have to experiment and/or read up on other people's experiences with different plant sources. The reason it doesn't wash out is because the action of the dye plus mordant is to "fix" or bind the pigment compound to the fibers. This is why you often use different mordants with wool (protein fiber) vs cotton (cellulose fiber), because the fibers themselves are chemically different and have different types of reactive sites.

how do you wash your fabric after dying it? hand wash cold? dry clean?

Awsome! Nice to see fiber related storques:)

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14500211 is cool! We are adding an addition on...hum....

Thank you, great info

Thank you! Love it :)

I so have to do this. As a fiber artist I will go dyeing crazy!! Thanks for this. I can wait to try it!

wow, I love how dyes work, thanks for the gerat article

Oh, now I know how to dye!! Thank you and will have a try!!

thanks for this, just had a look for other veg dyes and found that plum skins work too: http://craftingagreenworld.com/2008/07/11/diy-make-natural-non-toxic-dye/ for a purple color

Plant fibers need an alkaline mordant, like salt plus baking soda (mild), ammonia (medium) or lye (harsh). Wool and animal fibers need an acidic mordant like vinegar, lemon juice, or citric acid. That is why Kool-aid works so well on wool yarn. Poke berries in an acidic environment will turn wool deep maroon to purple but will turn cotton fabric sage green! Walnut bark or nut shells make a deep brown to black dye. Paprika plus an alkaline makes peach! Great info for getting started with natural dyes. Thanks!

Wow! Great How-to!!! Thank you, Kim!!!

WOW! I had no idea that this was possible. Great article and clear instructions, but I would like to know what keeps the dye in the yarn when it is washed if possible. Thank you!

All the wool in my shop has been dyed with natural dyes if you'd like to see the potential of these dyes. I've been doing this for many years, and can guarantee it is worth the effort! Read the slowCOLOR shop profile for more about natural dyeing. Keep in mind, though, that the color and light fastness of natural dyes varies A LOT, and usually requires a mordant (alum, tin, copper, etc which binds to the fiber, and to which the dye attaches itself) for good and long lasting color. Experimenting is really fun, but results can often be what is called "fugitive" with weaker dyes. I will be putting natural dyeing kits together soon to offer in my shop, please convo me if you'd like to be notified when they are available. I'm so happy to see Etsy give natural dyeing attention like this! Watch out, it can so become addictive - I started hacking up every plant I could get my hands on when I discovered this beautiful tradition.

I've used blueberries that I got at the market for free because they were molding! Dyed on hemp/silk I found that the colour started out a beautiful vibrant purple, and turned to a beautiful soft blue colour after washing. I definately recommend handwashing in cold water. The mordant, do you boil the fabric in that + water before dying? I know I have done this based on internet research. I would like to know more about how that works.

Best results come from mordanting (the mordant in water, yes) first, then dyeing, although they can be combined in the same bath at the risk of wasting dye molecules that'll stick to the mordant molecules in the solution instead of the fibers. The mordanting methods and dyeing recipes are different for protein fibers (wool & silk) and cellulose fibers (cotton, hemp, etc) and I am only experienced with wool and silk which are easiest to dye. For these fibers, the mordant bath is gradually brought to a simmer and held at that for about an hour, then allowed to cool overnight before removing. Mordanted fibers can be stored for future dyeing, too. Then the fiber is put into the dye pot (where the dye has already been extracted from the source material) and simmered again. Indigo dye is altogether different process and an entire tutorial is in order for that one.

OH, you guys are good! Thanks for all the great tips and general dyeing knowledge. I want to try out blueberries and plum skins now!

awesome!!! I just went huckleberry picking yesterday!!! I will make an apple cozy with my huckleberry yarn and post it.. Thanks!!!

JMCdesigns, Sharilyn24: Mordant keeps the dye from washing out. In the recipe I gave, salt works as the mordant. Actually tumeric doesn't even need a mordant. You can read more here: http://www.griffindyeworks.com/understanding_mordants.html thatpinksack: cotton can be difficult to dye without using more harmful mordants, but it will work! shiningspur, Chesterella: natural dyes fade faster than synthetic ones, but hand washing and air drying as well aas storing out of sunlight will help a lot. slowCOLOR, my7kids: great info, you guys are awesome! Down2EarthDesigns: there's tons of different methods for natural dyes (and there's so many different ones!). Some sites I'd recommend to start to get into it are above & also http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/naturaldyes.shtml thanks for reading/watching! I'd love to see pictures of other people's projects from this....

I love dyeing my own yarns, I try to only use natural dyes though (I don't like chemicals too much!). Lovely article(-:

Great article...I'd like to find a red dye.

I know my comment is very late, but concerning the lightfastness of natural dyes: I use natural dyes in my work as a bookbinder as was done prior to the discovery of synthetic dyes around 1856. The lightfastness of dyes depends on the dye itself. Dyes rich in natural tannins -- such as walnuts, tree barks, madder, etc. -- usually give excellent lightfastness. To increase the lightfastness of other dyes such as tumeric, cochineal and others, to a decoction of the dye add 10% gallnut extract and 10% citric or tartric acid. This helps to saturate the fibers with the color and the gallnut extract is the best anti-UV formula I've ever seen. I tested it by keeping a swatch of leather dyed with tumeric in the back of my car for three months... hardly any fading.

Wonderful! I love being able to see the comparison between the cotton and the silk. I would have thought it would be the opposite.

I just wanted to post that I tried the turmeric on felt made from recycled plastic bottles (synthetic) and it came out beautifully! Bright, deep yellow. I know synthetics are almost impossible to dye naturally and need disperse dyes, but Im making felt herb planters and couldn't use any chemical dyes that could possibly be taken up through the roots. So, with extra turmeric sitting in my kitchen, I decided to give it a try. PERFECT! I was so surprised. Thanks so much! Cabbage is next :)