Page 6 – Botanical Colors

Sunday Visit: Kara Gilbert of Vibrant Valley Farm

Every Sunday, we sit down with someone inspiring in the Natural dye world. This week, we meet with a Sunday Visit veteran, Kara Gilbert of Vibrant Valley Farm . Vibrant Valley Farm is a group of dedicated farmers committed to exploring innovative solutions to enliven the current food, floral and fiber systems. Vibrant Valley Farm is also the muscle behind the marigolds we sell on Botanical Colors, and the mastermind behind our new indigo product Vibrant Valley Blue Paste. Located on Sauvie Island, just outside of Portland, Oregon, Vibrant Valley Farm has been committed to exploring innovative solutions to enliven the current … Read more

Sunday Visit: Meet our newest team member Zach!

For Sunday Visit, Botanical Colors sits down for an interview with a luminary in the natural dye, textile and art world. This week we’re really excited to introduce our newest team member Zach. Zach works with us in our dye house and is an experienced and talented dyer himself. Read a little bit about him and his inspirations below. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How is it working with Botanical Colors? I am Washington raised and a recent graduate with a focus in technical apparel design. I am deeply appreciative of the natural world and am constantly drawing … Read more

Mordant Monday: Foraging Instead

Today I was supposed to write about mordanting, but I had a foraging date to scout out potential sites for our upcoming workshop with Julie Beeler, so I headed out this morning to get a sense of what we might discover during our workshop. I am a mushroom foraging novice, and will stare for a long time at the forest floor and see absolutely nothing. I simply don’t have the eyes yet to distinguish between a brown leaf and a bolete. But to my surprise, there were some mushrooms that give color that very happily announced their presence right in … Read more

Sunday Visit: Dream Making with Sara Buscaglia

For Sunday Visit, Botanical Colors sits down for an interview with a luminary in the natural dye, textile and art world. This week we sit down again with our inspiring friend Sara Buscaglia of Farm & Folk. Sara is an organic farmer, natural dyer and textile artist residing in the high desert of southwest Colorado. Her inspiration is found in the paradigm shifting slow processes of tending soil, seeds, and plants. Through her experience of being directly connected to food, natural color and fiber she has gained an understanding and appreciation of their true value. We hope you join us for her upcoming … Read more

More Mordant Experiments

I’m obsessed with using tannin and aluminum sulfate to create different color bases for both natural dyes and indigo. What I love about this technique is that this is a great mordant option and it’s a lot of fun to see the colors develop and take on the subtle differences between the different tannin bases. This time, we’re working with a lightweight, pre-mordanted, organic cotton suitable for stitching and quilting. We mordanted 4 fat quarters, each with a different tannin, and then tried a few dye experiments using Marigold Mix, Madder extract and Indigo. Start with our Mordanted Fat quarter … Read more

Mordant Monday: Middle Mordant Magic

In this week’s Mordant Monday, we discuss Middle Mordant. Middle Mordant is a technique that I learned about from The Art and Science of Natural Dyes. It’s considered to be a Japanese technique and is a simple way to create rich color on silk. Middle mordant uses room temperature dye baths and you can repeat the process until the fabric is the color you want. The purpose of middle mordant is to deepen the depth of shade and most of the examples I’ve seen use silk fabric and alum mordant. There are somewhat similar techniques that old dye books discuss, … Read more

Sunday Visit: Youngmin Lee

For Sunday Visit, Botanical Colors sits down for an interview with a luminary in the natural dye, textile and art world. This week we hear from renowned Korean Textile artist Youngmin Lee to talk about her upcoming workshop with us, her love of textile and her new book! Grab a cup of tea and settle in to learn about someone you never knew! Catch up on all our Sunday Visits HERE. We are announcing an exciting a workshop with her soon! We are so excited to host you next year. Can you tell us a little bit about your love of … Read more

Sunday Visit: Natalie Stopka, Materiality & Multitudes

For Sunday Visit, Botanical Colors sits down for an interview with a luminary in the natural dye, textile and art world. This week we visit with our resident Lake Pigment expert Natalie Stopka to talk about her upcoming workshop with us! Grab a cup of tea and settle in to learn about someone you never knew! Catch up on all our Sunday Visits HERE. What first sparked your interest into natural plant color? About 15 years ago I had the realization that instead of purchasing all the materials for a piece of art (an artist book in this case), I could … Read more

Mordant Monday: A NERD’S GUIDE TO MORDANTS

Kathy is currently creating magic at Sanborn Mills for her Nerd’s Guide to Mordants workshop. We decided to give you a little taste into all of the beautiful mordant variations she is creating for this workshop and some of the key considerations you should take into account when beginning to mordant. For all of you budding mordant nerds out there, here are some highlights of what is covered during the class. We are working on bringing this class to you in online form, so here is a little teaser while you wait! What is a Mordant? A mordant is a … Read more

Mordant Monday: Sneak peek of a new product

Mordanted Sashiko Thread with Different Tannin Options! Now you have the convenience of using tannins and a pre-mordanted thread to create your own color palettes and who doesn’t love that? Pictured from Left to Right: Cutch and Alum mordant, Sumac and Alum mordant, Gallo-Tannin and Alum mordant, and PFD, unmordanted Sashiko Threads We’ve been busy adding to our very popular mordanted product line, and will be offering mordanted Sashiko threads using three different mordant variables. The light brown color is Cutch, a light brown tannin, the yellow is Sumac, a yellow-based tannin, the light cream is Gallo-Tannin, a “clear” tannin, … Read more