This week I have been spending a good deal of time in the kitchen, cooking up natural dyes. I am actually surprised that after 7 years of art in college I had never learned to make paints, toxic or non toxic. But after reading Autumn’s post about how to make your own milk paint, I got to thinking even deeper into how to make pigments since the colored pigment can be as toxic as the binder. What I found out was a creative revelation that I can not stop cooking up! My personal criteria for creating pigment/dye is this:
- It cannot be toxic in any way, even if the substance is natural.
- It has to be in abundance and easily gathered in nature (don’t ever take so much that the plant can’t survive or make seeds.)
I totally hit the jack pot when I walked outside to find that my landlady next door has a plum tree with a gazillion plums that had already fallen to the ground and were being eaten by bugs, rotting, fermenting, gushy etc…
The natural organic dye experiment begins…
Supplies you’ll need to cook your brew:
- Water
- Salt or vinegar
- Cooking pot ( a spare that you don’t use for cooking food)
- Measure cup
- Strainer
- White, off white or light colored natural fabric (linen, organic cotton, wool and silk are best)
- Some sort of plant, flower, berry, root, bark, etc to dye with
- SALT FIX: 1/2 CUP SALT TO 8 CUPS COLD WATER
- VINEGAR FIX: 4 PARTS COLD WATER TO 1 PART VINEGAR
I strained out the skins and returned the dye to the pot and then start dipping the locally woven organic cotton into the plum dye! How freakin’ awesome, cause it started turning almost hot pink right away and stuck right to the fabric. Then I let the fabric simmer lightly in the dye for a richer color for about an hour, all steamy, hot and sooooo pretty! 
I allowed the fabric to sit in the dye overnight to make sure it had the darkest outcome possible since when it is rinsed and dried the color will be alot lighter.
Isn’t it pretty in pink ?!? (Almost as pretty as Molly Ringwald but I like my naturally dyed fabric even better then her prom dress!) All that from a couple discarded plums, Yay! It’s really easier then it looks and the whole process was totally relaxing and fun- not to mention I felt like I was part scientist, part witch! There are fantastic lists of natural stuff you can use for dye in just about every cool shade of color you can imagine. Go to Pioneer Thinking for a complete list of plants, berries, nuts and bark that can make a rainbow of fun, safe colors. For even more pigments a simple google search for “make your own natural dye” turns up plenty a colorful brew waiting for you to experiment with.
Have you ever tried a natural or non toxic dying process? What has been your experience?
I would like to know the best (deepest) I should say, dyes I could use for dyeing cotton. Im working with high school students in an after school program and need some good tips on using non toxic dyes. I don’t want to take a chance with making anyone sick with the chemicals. Can you help me?
charlotte
I found this to be very helpful. There’s a full list of plant material that you can get different dyes from on the bottom half of the page.
sweet! LOVE it!!!
Is the dyed fabric washable?
Will the colors stay in the fabric even if you wash the fabric? If I were to use this for clothing…?
how much water do you put inside the pot when you put the fabric (w/ the fix) in?
ITS REALLY NICE TO MAKE THIS NATURAL DYE N WANTED TO TALK TO YOU SOMETHING ABOUT MY OWN PROJECT…..PLZ MAIL ME IF POSSIBLE ON MY ID
My
personal favorite for summer is Raspberry cast-off. No matter if you are making
jelly or ice-cream all those seeds and red pulp make and excellent die. I
typically use it like tie-dying. Treat eh shirt as normal, put it in a bag and
add the red-pulp. I work it in the fabric for a few minutes and then let sit
for a little while and rinse.
Colors
vary in the shirts as in the fruit, but that is the magic. When completed, they
look like an old favorite tie-dye shirt I’ve had for years. I typically tie-dye
the shirts i ruin while canning.
I just visited a women’s coop weaving group in Guatemala and they use the entire plant and let it soak for 12-30 hours before even putting in their yarn. Then they soak the yarn for another 12 hours. The colors they got were very rich and vibrant, also some were quite unexpected (basil made a very pretty purple according to them, using the flowers, stem and leaves)
can this work on polyester (teddy bear fur)?
I wanted to turn my faded jeans a dark blue…what would you suggest using and do you think it would work on jeans?
This past summer I used perilla to dye some fabric. I wrote a post about it here: http://www.bloombakecreate.com/2011/07/dyeing-with-perilla/
Hi, i was writing up the procedure for this and i was wondering… When your simmering the salt fix, do you put on the stove?
Yep! You’d simmer it on the stove.
Wow! Great post. I’m a knitter/beginning spinner trying to step into a more sustainable kind of lifestyle. We are starting to look into foraging and planting and using what we have locally for eating, etc. I can’t wait to use your technique on some hand-spun wool!!
Thanks for these great tips! I dyed cotton wool balls with iron oxide and the varying shades of grey and black were interesting. When I tried to fix it with soda bicarbonate and vinegar, the colour rubbed off on my hands. Maybe I should’ve used salt and heated like you did. Next I’ll try henna, coffee and powdered paint and tumeric.
I have pink cotton i want to dye a mid blue what fruit can I use please
i really liked your eco-dyeing.
love from sewden