Late April: First Forays into Solo Home Dyeing

In late April I had the pleasure of ACTUALLY doing a little bit of dyeing on my own at home (instead of just talking and dreaming about it - my friends and husband deserve a medal for all the talking they listen to). I signed up for Sarah Tremaine’s “Become a Home Natural Dyer” virtual workshop. I had to do the workshop on my own time for the most part because of my crazy schedule at the time, but it was so good to learn to scour and mordant fabrics on my own, and to forage for dyestuffs, and use things right out of my garden, fridge, spice rack or compost.

I’ve been collecting some waste stuff for a while knowing full well that I wanted to start dyeing more this year, so I’ve been stockpiling avocado pits and skins, yellow and red onion skins.

In Sarah’s class, we scoured our fabrics with neutral dish soap and soda ash, and mordanted with gall nut tannin and Potassium Aluminum Sulfate. She sent us all the chemicals in the mail, which was amazing. For making the dye swatches, I had a piece of silk that she’d sent to me and some of my recycled cotton fabric that I’ve sourced from The New Denim Project in Guatemala. Really excited about this cotton! It’s not delicate, which I don’t mind, about medium weight. For my dye adventures, I dyed with purple cabbage, turmeric, mint, rosemary, cedar leaves and avocado pits and peels, pinecones and a variety of a Japanese red maple. My favorite results from these were purple cabbage, turmeric, avocado and rosemary.

The swatches below illustrate purple cabbage (left) and rosemary on cotton and silk, one of each being mordanted and the other simply scoured:

Cedar leaves (left) and mint on cotton and silk, also mordanted and just scoured:

Turmeric (left) and avocado pits and peels on cotton and silk, also mordanted and just scoured (though in these cases it didn’t seem to make much of a difference!):

Just this last weekend I finally re-visited cabbage, cedar and avocado dyeing on some garments and yards of recycled cotton. I’ll share those results in a few posts, but I’m so glad I did - I truly am all about that purple cabbage brand of blue. The cedar was really underwhelming this time so Sarah’s mordant must have been the ticket, and maybe the season I picked it in (spring vs. summer). And I’ve always had a thing for peachy colors especially when they lean pink - so avocado is a no brainer! I already know I’ve got a long road of avocado pigment gleaning ahead of me!

More soon, friends.

Lots of love,