Gather up supplies, it’s dye-along time!

It’s been a few long weeks, friends. I’ve been doing my best to remain positive, trying to look for the joyful moments and the beauty in such a time of chaos… but, time and time again, I come up short.

So, I thought we could all use some color and a bit of nature in our lives!

It was during the first few days of self isolation, in between reading news and feeling utterly hopeless (and useless), that I turned to my dye pots. I had just taken all the dye stuff out of my freezer, and dyeing seemed like the perfect antidote to what’s happening in the world. A meditation of sorts that you can carry throughout your day… and then there’s the magic of creating color! Sometimes predictable, other times completely unexpected, but always extremely satisfying! And then I imagined all of us dyeing along #togetherapart, and how much more amplified that joy could be, as we watch each other experiment and make beautiful things out of our garbage.

In all honesty, I’ve had this idea for a good two years now, but there was always something holding me back. I wanted it to be perfectly organized, with the most beautiful packaging and illustrations, and instructions… alas, a global pandemic calls for impromptu decisions, and making do with what we have...

So, here it is! I hope you can join me, and I look forward to seeing all the colors you create! I really hope that, at least during the moments we spend stirring our dye pots or admiring that avocado dyed yarn, we can forget about the world, even for a brief moment!

Yarn & fabric

My recommendation is that you always use natural fibers. However, there are significant differences even among natural fibers:

Protein: All fiber that comes from animals, such as wool and silk.
Cellulose: All plant fiber, such as cotton, linen, hemp.

Protein based fiber takes dyes much better than cellulose. Therefore, the same amount of dye will result in a darker hue on wool than on cotton, for example. Protein and cellulose fibers are also typically mordanted differently. We will cover mordants during the dye-along, but it might be something to consider when gathering materials.

If you don’t have any undyed yarn or fabric, you can still join in the fun with whatever you can find around the house. Maybe you have some kitchen towels that need a new life, or bed sheets, or curtains, or a white shirt, your baby’s clothes… so long as they’re not synthetic, you’re good to go!

If you happen to have different fiber and fabric on hand, it would also be a lot of fun to experiment and see what the variations in color are!

Tools & supplies

Note that this is neither an exhaustive nor a necessary list of tools. You can probably find most of these items in your kitchen, but don’t fret if you can’t. You can dye and achieve amazing colors without them, I promise.

Pots
Wooden spoons
Measuring spoons
Measuring cup / container
Tongs
Scale
Cheese cloth / sieve
Whisk / old fork
Gloves
Mask
PH strips

If I had to pick two from this list, I’d go with pots (obvious) and tongs (you can use them to stir and to grab). Your pots should ideally be stainless steel. They don’t need to be fancy or expensive. In fact, you should use one you’re not really using in the kitchen anymore. Just note that if you do use pots made of other metals, such as aluminum, they will affect the resulting color (they act as color modifiers).

If you’re using whole dye stuff (actual plants or food scraps vs dye extracts), and you don’t care about precision, you won’t really need scales, measuring spoons/cups, or a whisk.

Dye stuff

Botanical dyeing is a process, with multiple steps involved. In order to achieve the best results, you need to scour and mordant your fiber/fabric before it’s ready for dyeing. However, if you are just dyeing for your own use, or you don’t have some of these ingredients on hand at the moment, don’t worry too much about it. Here’s what you may need:

Orvus paste / soda ash / mild dishwashing detergent
Aluminum potassium sulfate / Aluminum acetate / tannin / iron / copper
Dye extracts / whole dye stuff

Unless you have wool that is very rich in lanolin, any mild dishwashing detergent will do the trick for scouring your fiber. Cellulose fibers are usually scoured using soda ash (not the same as baking soda), but if you don’t have any on hand, just pre-wash your fabric on high heat (you can just boil it in a pot if you don’t have a washing machine at home).

Mordants are what binds the dye to the fiber/fabric. Having said that, some dyes are very colorfast, and will produce vibrant colors that won’t wash off easily, even without a mordant. These are usually the dye stuff rich in tannin, such as oak galls, pomegranate skins, black tea leaves, rhubarb leaves, etc.

If you don’t have a collection of dye extracts already, here are a few plants and food scraps you can use (without having to leave your home):

Onion skins
Avocado skins + pits
Pomegranate skins
Black tea leaves
Citrus peel
Herbs
Carrot tops
Turmeric

You can also try and experiment with plants, flowers, or tree bark that you can easily find around you, you never know the results they might yield! And, who knows, we may all learn about a new dye plant!

Useful resource list

Dye supplies and how-to:
Undyed yarn and dye kits:
Books et al:
- The Wild Dyer by Abigail Booth
- The Modern Natural Dyer by Kristine Vejar
- Natural Color by Sasha Duerr
- The Art and Science of Natural Dyes by Joy Boutrup and Catharine Ellis
- Wild Color by Jenny Dean
- Harvesting Color by Rebecca Burgess
- Botanical Color at Your Fingertips by Rebecca Desnos

That’s all for now, friends. Get busy collecting, and we’ll meet here on Wednesday, April 8th for our first official day of the dye-along!