Page 3 – Botanical Colors

Sunday Visit: Women’s Day, Celebrating Kenya Miles of Blue Light Junction

On this International Women’s Day, we’re honoring the visionary, natural dyer and community organizer that is Kenya Miles—artist, urban farmer, and founder of Blue Light Junction, Baltimore’s first natural dye studio and a living monument to love in action. As Kenya and her team enter a new chapter of tending vats, garden beds, and community, they’re asking for our tangible support to keep this sanctuary of global dye traditions, education, and mutual care thriving. If Blue Light Junction’s work resonates with you, please take a moment today to visit their GoFundMe and give what you can, share if you’re able, … Read more

Mordant Monday: Planting a Dye Garden

“the sunflowers themselves far more wonderful than any words about them.”― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays Spring is coming so now is the chance to grow a few pots of your own color: dye flowers or indigo, or perhaps plant out some madder root for future harvest. Growing dye plants from seed is very rewarding, and you may have enough starts to share with your friends and community. There is a magic to walking outside and checking to see how the dye plants are doing. A few minutes inspecting, watering and talking to them is immensely calming. Watching the pollinators feast reminds … Read more

Mordant Monday: A Great Red with Madder Extract

My notes on how to make a great red. Madder extract is the perfect ingredient for a beautiful, vibrant red that almost glows because it has a gorgeous golden undertone. Sometimes the color veers toward a winey burgundy (equally beautiful), but I wanted to get almost a glowing ember feel to this yarn. To so this, I used a little bit less madder and the minimum amount of calcium carbonate. Here’s how I did it. Materials Instructions Where’s the Cream of Tartar? Cream of tartar is a great mordant additive for dyeing as it helps keep wool soft and assists … Read more

Mordant Monday: Medieval Oak Gall Ink Recipe

Medieval Oak Gall Ink Recipe Oak gall ink, also known as iron gall ink, is one of the oldest writing inks in the Western world, used in manuscripts, letters, and botanical drawings for centuries. In this Mordant Monday, we’re exploring a simple medieval‑style recipe you can make at home with our gallo tannin, oak galls or ground oak galls. Ingredients Instructions Usage and Safety Notes A Historical Note Medieval scribes relied on oak gall ink for everything from illuminated manuscripts to everyday records, valuing its permanence, intensity, and resistance to fading. By working with oak gall powder and gallo tannin, … Read more

Mordant Monday: We stand with Minnesota and Maine

Botanical Colors is an immigrant company. I experienced hearing the stories of my mother and father who were stripped of their constitutional rights and incarcerated for three years in US concentration camps during World War II. They were US citizens. They too, were taken away and “detained” because the government didn’t like the way they looked and where they came from. The events occurring in Minnesota and Maine (and not to forget LA, Chicago, and other US cities) are profoundly disturbing to me. Botanical Colors stands in fierce, grieving solidarity with our communities in Minnesota and Maine who are facing escalating … Read more

Mordant Monday: Why so Many Alums?

For today’s Mordant Monday, We are revisiting a great question: All those alums?! Why so many alums? You Asked: Hello, I am wondering if it is possible to use Ammonium Aluminum Sulfate for mordanting wool? I am finding this substance in the spice section ofthe grocery store. I can’t seem to find definitive information about this and I feel confused about all the different “alums” that exist. We answered: The different alum types are basically the same mineral but they are refined differently for different purposes using a variety of chemicals. They can look different, too. For protein fibers, aluminum … Read more

Mordant Monday: Wool Fibers Feel Weird

It’s winter, and many of us have taken up knitting and crocheting during the cooler weather. While I’m thinking about knitting, my mind wanders to mordanting (of course), and some of the questions we’ve received from curious dyers. This Mordant Monday, I thought I’d start with some common questions when mordanting changes the hand feel and quality of wool fibers. The natural dye process uses a lot of heat, and a fair amount of handling: stirring, squeezing, rinsing. It’s easy for wool to react to all of this and become rougher feeling, even felted! Check out this week’s Mordant … Read more

Mordant Monday: Mordant questions

Here’s a round up of mordant questions from the community! Do I need to rinse mordants before dyeing? We rinse aluminum potassium sulfate mordanted fibers lightly before proceeding to the dye pot. We rinse aluminum acetate mordanted fibers lightly after we’ve completed the calcium carbonate dunging step. We rinse aluminum sulfate and tannin mordanted fibers lightly after the aluminum sulfate step. We rinse aluminum triformate mordanted fibers after the mordant step. We rinse iron mordanted fibers well after the iron mordanting step. How do I increase the amount of mordant on something that’s already been previously mordanted? We’ve had good … Read more

Mordant Monday with The Dogwood Dyer: Dyeing with Thanksgiving Leftovers!

We decided to bring back this incredible tutorial that Liz Spencer of the The Dogwood Dyer created for us! She knows food waste and is a master at turning what most would throw away, into things of beauty. We asked Liz Spencer, the driving force behind The Dogwood Dyer, if she could put together a how-to for us using onion skins. She came back to us with this Dyeing with Thanksgiving Leftovers: An Artful Approach to Onion Skins tutorial. If you follow Liz, you know she offers an amazing subscription called A Year In Natural Dyes. This month it’s all … Read more

Sunday Visit: From Plant to Pigment with Natalie Stopka

Natalie Stopka’s work lives at the confluence of artistry, ecology, and inquiry. A bookmaker and pigment artist attuned to the language of materials, she explores the cycles of growth, decay, and transformation through color coaxed from the natural world. Her studio practice feels like collaboration rather than control—an ongoing conversation between plant, hand, and time. In this week’s Sunday Visit, Natalie opens the doors to that world, where books are bound with patience, pigments ripen through experiment, and the intimacy of observation becomes a creative act in itself. Her new book, From Plant to Pigment, grew from years of teaching … Read more