Learning: Recipes, Instructions & More

Ever wondered how to dye with marigold flowers? The humble marigold makes a beautiful and easy color that captures summer even when the weather is cold and gray. They brighten flower borders and are a companion plant in organic gardening. Marigold (Tagetes erecta) is native to Central America. The Aztecs used it as a flavoring […]

In a recent Live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring Mordanting & Scouring 101, Botanical Colors Founder Kathy Hattori took on all your questions. Here’s what you asked, and Kathy’s answers: Scouring Questions If I use untreated and unbleached fabric, is it a must to scour the fabric or is washing it enough? If you mean by “untreated” […]

I’ll admit I am a latecomer to eco-printing, but now find it quite useful to extending  dyestuffs that have had one life making a dyebath, but the bulky residue and stuff that gets strained out is still full of color.  I prefer used dyestuffs for eco-printing as there’s usually so much dye left in the […]

This year’s Pantone Color of the Year is a bright and lively coral shade called Living Coral (Pantone 16-1546).  It’s a mid-tone shade and the natural dye version of it is very popular and easy. We like how madder extract will give you a beautiful shade. We are teaming up with the Woods Hole Film […]

This week: Bundle dyeing with zinnia flowers and a spotlight on, and recipe for, versatile wattle dye.

About Food says that “Easter falls in the spring, the yearly time of renewal, when the earth renews itself after a long, cold winter. The word Easter comes to us from the Norsemen’s Eostur, Eastar, Ostara and Ostar and the pagan goddess Eostre all of which include the season of the growing sun and rebirth. […]

We love this article by Scissor Variations on how to DIY dye yarn at home. Though the author suggests Dylon dyes, we’ll direct you here to all of our natural dyes that will help achieve the same results with much less toxicity. Check out the step by step process here and have fun (not to […]

Indigo has a long standing history of heavy-duty power in terms of economics and trade and is probably one of the most talked and written about dyes in the natural dye world. We love the color blue and all its moodiness. It’s also very in for fall 14. Get ready for the navy explosion! For […]

This past Saturday I taught a natural dye workshop in the backyard of my friend’s Cyd and Neal’s vintage store – The Grand Street Bakery. A vintage store set in a converted old bakery, fully equipped with awesome vintage threads hanging on repurposed baking racks, stocked with natural apothecary, magazines and generally some of the […]

Like I’ve said before, working for a natural dye guru like Kathy Hattori can give one an inferiority complex. I hate inferiority complexes for me or anyone else, so when feeling less than, I say take on the thing that most scares you (unless it’s skiing). In this particular case, I accepted the challenge of […]