The Natural Dyeing Process

Botanically dyed with corepsis flowers.

Botanically dyed with an onion skin dye bath and printed with eucalyptus, liquid amber, and leaves.

Organic Dye Garden

Scour and Mordant Cloth

Logwood Dye Bath

Eucalyptus leaves and bark dye bath.

Cosmo and coreopsis flowers on logwood-dyed silk.

Design

Collect Your Dye Plants

Dye materials are collected by sustainably foraging from forests, parks, or on neighborhood walks. I have a dedicated dye garden for the plants that give me my favorite color and design. Onion skin, avocado pits, and pomegranate skins all produce a range of colors and are just as precious as the tasty fruit or vegetable they offer.

Prepare The Fabric

First, scour the material to remove impurities. The following step is mordanting the cloth. The mordanting process creates a chemical bond between the fabric and a mordanting salt, which is necessary for the plant dyes to attach to the fabric.

Dye Bath

A deep purple logwood dye bath will give a soft violet color to silk. Eucalyptus leaves and bark creates a rich dye bath printing a variety of earth tones. Small amounts of madder root extract can give a wide range of reds from ‘Turkey Red,’ orange, and terracotta to purple, rust, and deep browns. An onion skin dye bath gives rich golden tones to silk. 

The color you wish to produce from the natural dye and the quality of print you get from your plant depends on your combination of acidic or alkaline assists, the PH level of your water, and the disposition and variety of the plant when collected, the integrity and technique of the bundle, the heat applied and most importantly your mordanting recipe. Every natural dyer has unique and favorite recipes for every step in the natural dying process to produce the color and print of their choice.

Design, Bundle & Heat

Plants are placed on silk, rolled into a tight bundle, using various binding methods, and heat is applied.

Come Together and Create

The possibilities are endless.