Making Natural Dyes
The Wearable Tech Group have started looking at making our own plant / natural dyes partly in response to the covid-19 lockdown.
Here's some useful links, hints and tips, followed by a list of our own experiments.
- Gardening Knowhow
- Long list of plants to make dyes
- All natural dyeing Comprehensive resources for natural dyeing
"Basically, natural dyes will not adhere to natural fibres without the use of a mordant or fixative. Whilst you may initially get a beautiful result from the dyeing, it will soon wash out or fade away!
Protein fibres like silk and wool absolutely need a plant extract (dye) and a mineral mordant. So, if you are looking to dye some yarn to eventually produce a garment that will wash well you must learn a little about mordants!
Cottons and linens or other plant based textiles need a fixative to help set the dye, so that your wonderful creation does not lose color quickly." From all natural dyeing
- Salt – Use salt as a fixative for cotton fabrics, thread or yarns. As a general rule you should use 1 part salt to 16 parts water. Place your dyeing medium into the salted water and simmer for about an hour to allow maximum absorption. Gently squeeze the salted water from your dyeing medium and then – whilst still wet – immerse the item into the dye bath.
- Tannins – Tannins occur naturally in some plants, which eliminates the need for other fixatives. These plants are indicated by an “**” mark in the colors page.
- Vinegar – 1 part vinegar to 4 parts water. Use as per salt above.
- Baking Soda – 1/2 cup baking soda to 1 gallon water. Simmer.
- Tara Powder – ?
- Cream of Tartar – Cream of Tartar is often used with an alum mordant to produce a clearer color in the final dyed product
- Washing Soda – ?
I collected onion skins and simmered them in water for a few hours, then sieved and used the resulting liquid to dye an old white top.
Onion skins collected over several weeks:
Onion skin liquor after being simmered for several hours and then sieved:
Top after being simmered with the onion skin liquor, then washed on a gentle program with a cup of salt and non-bio detergent:
Note: Avo skins and pits are high in tannins and therefore a mordant isn't required when dying animal proteins (wool/silk) however when dying cotton it may be difficult to achieve deeper shades without the use of an additioal mordant (such as a soya milk pre-treatment).
Dye liquor: 5 whole pits and crushed skins (4 of which had been dried then frozen, 1 fresh and organic) brought to the boil and left just below a simmer w. 3 litres of water for ~2hrs
Substrate (~1m^2): Cotton calico had previously been washed on a full cycle with non-bio (30degC) and was then covered in boiling water while liquor was brewing. It was lukewarm by the time the dye was ready.
The cotton was drained and left damp immediately before the hot dye liquor was strained and poured over the fabric. Fabric agitated for ~10mins and left to steep for 7-8 hrs with agitation every hr or so. Once pulled it was immediately rinsed by hand using cool water and mild detergent until water ran clear.
Colour of dye liquor after 2hrs:
Straight after being pulled from the bath:
After cool rinse using mild detergent:
Once dried next to undyed cotton:
I pre-treated bleached cotton calico fabric by soaking it overnight in a dilute solution of soya milk and drying it in the sun.
I simmered around 2 cups of turmeric powder in water for around 4 hours.
I then ironed the cotton calico fabric in various patterns and secured it with wide elastic bands before simmering it in the dye liquor for around an hour. After rinsing the fabric parcels under a tap, I removed the elastic bands, then washed the fabric on a gentle program with non-bio detergent and salt.
Simmering turmeric:
Simmering cloth parcels:
Different tie-dye patterns achieved:
I left a plain piece of fabric in the dye liquor for a longer period of time and got a much darker effect. I'm going to leave this piece in the sun to see how fast the dye fades:
Jackie - Experimenting with natural dyes and mordants from a kit, rhubarb leaves, laser engraving fabric and my second attempt with onion skins (04/07/20)
I bought a mordant pack and natural dye kit from George Weil Fine Art and Craft Supplies. It seems a bit like cheating, perhaps we should just be using stuff we can find ourselves! I'm hoping it will give us a good start in knowing what works and what doesn't. The natural dye kit also contained wool, so that gave me something else to try out.
I started by mordanting the wool with alum, following the instructions in the kit (dissolve 50g alum and 10g cream of tartar in boiling water for each 250g dry weight of wool, add the wool and simmer for 45 minutes). I then simmered some of the wool with a small amount of Alkanet:
Ross gave me some rhubarb leaves, which we'd heard made a good mordant and possibly a dye.
I boiled the rhubarb leaves for around an hour and then simmered some soy milk treated cotton calico. The result was a pale but quite attractive greenish yellow:
Not attractive enough to keep though! I dyed cotton with and without rhubarb using logwood from the kit to see whether it made any difference as a mordant. It did:
I'd say rhubarb leaves deserve more experimentation! Logwood too; it looked a beautiful deep pink colour while simmering, but I read that adding cream of tartar would "brighten the colour". I added some and it turned brown. It's dyed my kitchen sink a pretty and persistent dark blue colour though, so it's obviously got potential.
Laura suggested laser etching some fabric to see if that made any difference to dye uptake. I etched a triangle pattern on some cotton calico:
At this stage I'd collected a large quantity of red and brown onion skins, plus some garlic skins so I decided to have another go with those. The results were a lot darker than on my previous attempt. I was surprised to see that the etched areas were lighter than the main fabric - we're guessing that the etching might have removed some of the soy milk treated surface, but it would be good to hear other ideas.
I also dyed some of the wool, amazing! Photo also shows the alkanet dyed wool which is just ok:
There was quite a lot of onion liquor, so I did some more tie-dye, using thin wire to tie the fabric:
Finally (this is about 3 weeks worth of fabric dyeing!), I dyed some wool and fabric with elderberries - I used 50g which should have given a darker shade. Although the final result was relatively pale, the grey colour on the cotton is really nice, and goes well with turmeric yellow:
- Dyeing with Spirolina green algae
- Hibiscus Flowers pink, add acid (lemon) to go blue
- Oak galls Marble potato galls...making inks from oak galls, the original
tanninfrom medievaltanningtimes, the 'galls' are easier to pick (and trade) dont harm the tree. People add ferrous sulphate or ferrous dioxide (rust) to fix and stain this into black