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…
Editor’s Note: The plums here are red plums – the kind with bright pink flesh (as you can see in the photos below). You will not get the same bright pink color from other varieties of plum, so make sure the ones you use are red!
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?
[...] fabrics from small producers colored with plant-based dyes, it makes a difference. When you opt to make your own non-toxic mix and dye your own fabric, it makes a [...]
I wish that it could be so much shorter. I mean if I used a smaller peice if fabric could it be dont in less time?
Ya, I had the same question.
thank you very inspirational, will give it a go to do some felting. All good things take a long time and what is time anyway?????
very helpful! i am doing this for my science project1 i admire ur environental patrionism!
[...] about caring for these fabrics and the different plants used in the dyeing process. These plant-dyed fabrics take a little bit of extra love. They recommend either hand washing or machine washing on a [...]
If you let the fabric sit in the dyepot overnight, then you don’t need to “simmer” it for so long. Just bring to a boil, simmer about 10 minutes, andturn off the fire. It sits in the pot longer, but it uses less fuel.
I have used onionskins for dyeing. A few handfuls of skins into 2 litres of water simmer for few hours untill it looks dark brown. Then I dissolved a 2 tablespoons of salt into diy. Let the fabric simmer for another hour. It turned out golden yellow. Beautiful colour! Same way I used a beet root. It has to be peeled and sliced. Beet root gives a beige colour with light pink shade. Intense of colour depends on how much beet root you use.
Does anyone know what plants to use to get a deep/dark olive or moss green?
I want to dye cotton or silk yarn
I haven’t tried it, but moss might produce a color like that.
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)
Hi Emily,
I love the idea of using natural materials to dye. What color shade of purple resulted
from using the basil plant???
Thank you fory our reply,
Did you discover other produce or
Susan
PS. I’m searching for a rainbow chart of colors
botanicals that created a nice color for dyeing? tx.
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
[...] More on Natural, Non-Toxic Dyes [...]
i really liked your eco-dyeing.
love from sewden
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[...] Plum skins dye fabric hot pink! [...]
[...] followed this tutorial as my [...]
High,
Do you know if this process would Dye wood? Thank you for spending the time to post this blog in detail. Peace
i tried plums/salt and my fabric looked pale pink after 24 hours of soaking, but after one wash, it was just gray. :/
Oh no! What ratio of plum skins to water did you use? Maybe more is the answer? It also sounds like she simmered for an hour and then let it soak – I wonder if that heat makes a difference!
can you classify what other fruit or things can be used please
What substances have you had success (no severe stripping of colour) using to wash your naturally-died cloth ? I assume there’s more than cold water to it.
Wonderful article, by the way. I fortuitously have a bucket of these plums already sitting in the room that were previously dedicated to the making of fruit leathers.
I just wash like normal with eco-friendly detergent. The color will fade a bit on the first washing but it should hold steady after that. How much it fades depends on the type of fabric. Something more absorbent will fade less, because it should hold on to the dye better.
I am just decided to try natural dyeing. I have collected red onion skins and rose of Sharon flowers. I will let you know how it turns out. Colleen
Yay! Looking forward to hearing how it goes.
I used red onion peels to dye cotton. Love the muted red. I got all my onion peel at my fruit stand by cleaning out the onion bin. Of course I asked first. Most people are ready to help when they know what your doing. I got old wool jackets at the salvation army at a reduced price when I told them I was going to use them for felting.
Thanks for all the info! I am trying to figure out how to dye my white couch covers (heavy cotton) beige? Thought of black tea or coffee- but so afraid it will look spotty- any thoughts????
Have been looking for ideas on how to make my own vegetable dyes when i stumbled across your site, a few other sites mentioned allum as the fixative which i didnt want to use. So I was excited to find this all natural way! Thanks so much for sharing…. can’t wait to dye my wool for felting yay
Salt is not a fixative. It helps move (migrate) the color into the fabric. You are actually not fixing the dye into the fabric as that takes a chemical bond which you have not created.
Many plant dyes will fade or wash our over time because of this, cold water ONLY. Also many plant dyes are not sunfast, meaning light will fade them. Do not line dry these items as they will usually fade.
HI , I’m looking to make aorganic paint for my painting . I make dye for eggs ,but I do not know how to thickned to use for my painting . Thank you
Hi!
Wonderful post!
Thanks!
I will try dying fabric with berry juice (got a lot of that in stock, but I didn´t know I can make my own organic dye with fruit).
@Norazart : You can mix any color out the three base colors red, yellow and blue (the internet will help for more info about the possibilities you have with those three colors).
To get green, just mix yellow with a bit of blue (for example, yellow from onion peels and blue from blueberries).