Explore the Botanical Colors blog for natural dye recipes, mordanting guidance, indigo techniques, expert answers, workshops and sustainable textile stories.
We had a blast with the Green Eileen team on Earth Day at the Green Eileen shop in Seattle. The store hosted a cocktail party and featured gently worn EILEEN FISHER clothing for sale overdyed with Botanical Colors dyes. Indigo, pomegranate and madder were just a few of the colors used. Check out the party pictures below!
Check out our guest post on Makers Row! As consumers increasingly look for transparency around the making and sourcing of the products they purchase, designers are striving to meet that need not only the conception of the product, but the manufacturing. While finding the perfect, environmentally-friendly fabric poses a challenge that’s equal parts fun and gratifying, locating a factory that adheres to sustainable practices can prove more daunting. So what are the key things you need to know when identifying the factory that keeps your production process green? We spoke to Kathy Hattori of natural dye studio Botanical Colors, a … Read more
Join us Saturday December 4 at JaponTex at the historic La Conner Civic Garden Club in La Conner Washington. JaponTex is a free event for all things Japanese and features textile artists Patricia Belyea, Mary Pettus and Sylvia Pippen. The artists will be showing their holiday gift items and Botanical Colors will make an indigo vat for dipping for you to get your Mood Indigo on for the holidays. The event runs Friday through Sunday. We’ll be there Saturday from 11-4.
According to the BLUE ALCHEMY: Stories of Indigo site, the documentary is a feature-length documentary about indigo, “a blue dye that has captured the human imagination for millennia. It is also about people who are reviving indigo in projects that are intended to improve life in their communities, preserve cultural integrity, improve the environment, and bring beauty to the world.” Mary Lance filmed BLUE ALCHEMY in India, Japan, Bangladesh, Mexico, El Salvador, Nigeria, and the USA. Have you seen it? Thoughts? BLUE ALCHEMY: Stories of Indigo Trailer from Mary Lance on Vimeo.
This is one of the greatest color wheels we have ever seen! Lapham’s Quarterly looked at “natural” dyes and color from Egyptian Galena in 1900 BC to Nantucket Red in 1950! Fascinating and a must read. Click over to the article here. Image: Lapham’s Quarterly
Shibori is a centuries-old Japanese method of dyeing cloth by binding, stitching, folding, twisting, and compressing. In this workshop featuring all Botanical Colors indigo dyes, participants will learn these basic techniques through demonstration and hands-on application. Utilizing recycled and reclaimed materials, participants will apply these decorative techniques to create their own unique piece. Tuition is $115 and includes materials, use of all tools, coffee, tea, and light snack not to mention just being in the amazing and beautiful EILEEN FISHER Learning Lab in Irvington. RSVP on the EILEEN FISHER Learning Lab page here! Instructor Jean Wasil is a graduate of … Read more
We’re so excited to see our Botanical Colors natural dyes featured with one of our favorite customers on Cool Hunting! Cool Hunting writes: “Olderbrother, the new clothing line started by Portland, Oregon-based designer Bobby Bonaparte and LA-based Max Kingery, has a whimsical, minimalist aesthetic that is partly influenced by the duo’s fascination with Japanese design and partly by their sly, irreverent attitude towards fashion and clothing. The brand’s 2015 autumn/winter collection, called “Enthusiasm and Naps,” is comprised of boxy, unisex and deceptively casual garments like sweatshirts, T-shirts and sweatpants, along with two wool coats, button-down oxfords, polos and a gabardine … Read more
Before a new line of Levi’s indigo blue jeans appears in a store, Bart Sights and his team at the Levi’s Eureka Lab have worked hard to perfect the perfect pair. The New York Times writes: “Natural indigo is finicky, and for the jeans Levi’s produces on a mass scale, the company uses primarily synthetic, the industry norm. These kettles of dye, with their rich fish-sauce stink, are mostly kept around as inspiration, a link to a previous era that, given Levi’s role in the early years of denim jeans (“waist overalls,” as they were originally known), is a constant … Read more
The New York Times writes: Among the 200 objects in “The Fabric of India” exhibition on display through January at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is a vast chintz tent used by the renowned 17th-century Deccan ruler Tipu Sultan. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the European craze for such Indian chintz, printed cotton fabric with a glazed finish, prompted several governments to tax and even ban imports. Eventually, Europeans began making the fabric themselves. And the Indian industry declined — its skilled, labor- intensive techniques utilizing woodblock printing and meticulous hand painting of floral motifs … Read more
Carolyn Higgins of the Seattle Globalist recently featured Botanical Colors founder Kathy Hattori on toxic textile dyeing. Carolyn writes: “Your soft cotton tee shirt is the ultimate warm fuzzy. Snuggling gratefully into its soft fibers, you feel virtuous about buying a product that was made of natural organic materials. Think of all those barrels of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers that weren’t sprayed on foreign cotton fields thanks to you. Think of the smiling cotton farmers in Turkey and India growing those pure white organic tufts for you to snuggle into. Sigh. Bet you a tidy sum that the label boasting of organic fiber … Read more
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