Color Changers and other Assists

This week: How to keep madder “fast” and is alum toxic?

This week: Interesting questions on pre and post-treatments for color and lightfastness

This week: Storing indigo from the colder weather, getting grays on protein fibers and indigo soap making

Using natural dyes is certainly a lot more friendly than using something like Rit but there are ways you can be a lot more efficient in how you use them. Here are some tips we’ve put together for you.

This week: What’s the shelf life of mordants and is cold indigo leaf dyeing stronger or weaker than hot?

This Week: Reusing symplocos for mordanting and considering just what a “chemical” is.

Each week, we are emailed with questions from our natural dye community asking simple and complex questions that we thought might be worth sharing. Here are a handful from this week answered by natural dyer in chief, Kathy Hattori, Founder of Botanical Colors: I’m an indigo dyer using an iron vat. I keep getting the […]

Each week, we are emailed with questions from our natural dye community asking simple and complex questions that we thought might be worth sharing. Here are a handful from this week answered by natural dyer in chief, Kathy Hattori, Founder of Botanical Colors: When do I know when I should stop rinsing my yarn after […]

For the first time Pantone introduced not one but TWO shades for 2016 Color of the Year: Rose Quartz and Serenity.  Pantone describes the colors: Rose Quartz is a persuasive yet gentle tone that conveys compassion and a sense of composure. Serenity is weightless and airy, like the expanse of the blue sky above us, […]

I’ve been thinking about how to get more natural color while using less water and energy. Here are some simple tips: 1.  Try some of the innovative dye techniques as practiced by India Flint and Kimberly Baxter Packwood. Both these artists create using low-water and low resource methods that yield surprising and very beautiful results. […]