This week: How to make an indigo iron vat, can dyes expire and washfastness
Blog
Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Sasha Duerr Talks Plant Dyeing
This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring Sasha Duerr and her tips on place-based dyeing. Watch the video here: Sasha taught us how to look at place as a treasure trove of color. She also gave some great tips on how to accept color no matter how long it lasts. If you didn’t grab her new book yet, go here to grab a copy. You might also like her 5 Seasonal Color Wheels derived from local plant and food sources throughout the year. A couple of things to share with you from Sasha… The Seaweed Research … Read more
Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Book Making + Natural Dyes With Brece Honeycutt
This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring book making with natural dye and textile artist Brece Honeycutt. Watch the video here: Brece taught us how to do “Improv Book Making” with supplies found in our kitchen and desk drawers. She also took us on a virtual trek to think about journals as a way to document our natural color journeys, writings and drawings during these times. From Emerson to Thoreau, Emily Dickinson to Mary Oliver and Patti Smith, the common thread for their creativity? A notebook. If you are not familiar with FEEDBACK FRIDAY, every week, … Read more
Video From Live FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Fashion Revolution + Katrina Rodabaugh
This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring Fashion Revolution Co-Founder Orsola de Castro and mending/natural dyeing author and artist Katrina Rodabaugh. Katrina Rodabaugh gave inspiring insight into some easy mending techniques, ways we can rethink our clothing and how natural dyes have been a big part of her Make, Thrift, Mend project. This week fell right on Fashion Revolution Day, the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, which killed 1138 people and injured many more on 24th April 2013. During this week, brands and producers are encouraged to respond with the hashtag #imadeyourclothes and to … Read more
Video From Live FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Natural Dye Inks With Biohue
This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY exploring natural dye inks with Judi Pettite of Biohue. Watch the recording here: This time around we got Judi Pettite, the founder of Biohue to answer questions and talk about how she forages, purchases and grows all the materials for her art as mindfully as possible. BioHue dye inks was founded in 2006 after Judi fell in love with colors she was getting from plants. Her inks and watercolors are made intentionally from the fewest ingredients possible and can be used in a number of applications including painting, drawing and home … Read more
Video From Live FEEDBACK FRIDAY: The 1-2-3 Indigo Vat Using Iron
This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY exploring a version of the famous 1-2-3 indigo vat using iron. Watch the recording here: This time around we explored a version of the famous 1-2-3 indigo vat using iron (ferrous sulfate) as our reducing agent. This is a useful vat for achieving darker shades, but comes with a few caveats. We reviewed how to make the vat using the 1-2-3 method (the proportions are a little different than the fructose vat), and what to do when your vat turns purple (really). We also reviewed safety and best practices. Botanical Colors’ … Read more
FEEDBACK FRIDAY Goes Live March 27th
Join us this week, March 27th, 9am Pacific, for a live FEEDBACK FRIDAY! Let’s social distance ourselves from the realities of what’s outside our homes and talk all things natural dyes. What could be better? If you are not familiar with FEEDBACK FRIDAY, every week, we are emailed with questions from our natural dye community. Weekly, all of your burning questions are answered by natural dyer in chief, Kathy Hattori, Founder of Botanical Colors. Both Kathy and Amy DuFault, Botanical Colors’ Sustainability and Social Media Director will be on hand to moderate and answer questions this week. Hopefully, the two … Read more
FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Aluminum Acetate Substitute & Using Recyclables For Seed Cups
This week: Substitutes for aluminum acetate and using recyclables for natural dye seed cups
Covid-19 update from Botanical Colors
Covid-19 update from Botanical Colors Greetings from Seattle – ’nuff said about that. We are heartbroken that so many of our dear creative friends are feeling the fear and uncertainty of the outbreak. It is a crazy time, and not knowing what’s going to happen is unnerving. We are doing okay, and taking an abundance of health precautions. The weather is sunnier, daffodils are in bloom and the Winter Daphne (Daphnia odora) is delighting us with her amazing fragrance. Those simple things are lifting our spirits during these difficult times. The dog is delighted that we are around a lot … Read more