Indigo Archives - Page 12 of 13

This Indigo Research Could Make Blue Jeans Green

According to Phys.org, Berkeley bioengineering professor John Dueber has studied the chemical steps plants use to naturally make indigo, and he thinks he has found an environmentally green way for the industry to churn out the dye without the use of toxic compounds. “When plant leaves are healthy, a chemical precursor to indigo, called indican, is caged within a sugar molecule and isolated from the rest of the cell in an organelle. Only when leaves are damaged is indican released from this compartment. The sugar protective cage is removed, allowing a chemical change that makes indigo. Green leaves turn blue. … Read more

The 225 Year Old Cyanometer That Measures Blue

The website Colossal writes: “Hot on the heels of a post earlier this week about centuries-old guide for mixing watercolors, I stumbled onto this 18th century instrument designed to measure the blueness of the sky called a Cyanometer. The simple device was invented in 1789 by Swiss physicist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt who used the circular array of 53 shaded sections in experiments above the skies over Geneva, Chamonix and Mont Blanc. The Cyanometer helped lead to a successful conclusion that the blueness of the sky is a measure of transparency caused by the amount … Read more

Supermarket Colors: Amazing Dyes Just Waiting To Be Found

This fun article on Sweet Paul Magazine is a fresh look at how common food dyes found around the home as well as natural dyes can work together. (Just the photography had us hook, line and sinker…) We’ve recently put up new dye instructions on the site including this easy indigo vat recipe so go explore and see what fun new projects you can come up with!

Botanical Colors Gets More Indigo Love

I recently interviewed Natalie Chanin on how hard it is to run a business and was happy she name dropped Botanical Colors! See a portion of the interview below and to read the article in its entirety, go to the Brooklyn Fashion+Design Accelerator. How long have you used natural dyes and is your Indigo Collection your first collection showcasing them? In 2008, we began collaborating with an organization called Goods of Conscience, a non-profit that was based in The Bronx at that time. This was our first foray into the world of natural dyes. We expanded our natural dye selection … Read more

Dyeing for Dummies: Natural Dye Poster Child-Indigo

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 Dyeing for Dummies, I have put not only myself but husband and daughter in the cross hairs of looking foolish, over exuberant, and dummy-like. (Side note, they had a blast and refuse to be called dummies.) We used all of Botanical Colors’ dyes and … Read more

For Tiina Laakkonen and the Elder Statesman, Blue Is the Warmest Color

“As anyone familiar with her styling work, her Amagansett, N.Y., boutique, Tiina, or her nearby home already knows, Tiina Laakkonen really, really loves indigo. “Blue is my favorite color and indigo is the most natural, alive version of it,” she says. “I used to live in black clothes when I lived in New York, but they seem too hard in both the light and the life out East.” Now, Laakkonen has teamed up with one of the designers whose work she carries in her store, Greg Chait of the Elder Statesman, to create limited editions of four Elder Statesman styles in her signature … Read more

A VIP Indigo Dye Party with Sustainable Powerhouses

Last weekend we decided to get some of our favorite Seattle folks together for a private dyeing party and show them how much fun one can have putting color to cloth. In attendance were Sarah Menzies filmmaker, director and general mind-blower of Let Media, model, activist and humanitarian Kate Dillon who works for forestry protection through Code REDD, business coach Tara Wefers as well as Leslie Ross who is keeping Seattle in proper planetary alignment. There were lots of “Oooohs” and Aaahhhhs” and fun new tricks happened upon by accident but the one thing we loved most? Getting a fantastic … Read more

Social Change Through Indigo, Shibori and EILEEN FISHER

This past weekend we had the pleasure of collaborating with EILEEN FISHER’S GREEN EILEEN team at a workshop in Seattle at the Hillman City Collaboratory. The Collaboratory is a center for the arts and an incubator for social change with a mission to create a space of transformation including the built environment and the programming specifically designed to create community and equip change-makers. The Collaboratory is housed in a multi-use complex that incorporates four unique spaces: the mixing chamber, the coworking office, the learning kitchen, and the community park & garden. Attendees learned the Japanese art of shibori and natural … Read more

Madison Wool and Wildwood Farm Host a Natural Dye Weekend

We had so much fun this past weekend in Madison, Connecticut at Madison Wool and Wildwood Farm’s natural dye weekend! Participants had their own personal natural dye journeys using both the classical, historical dyes and some surprising new ones (think walnut sludge and pokeberries). We also worked with some of Botanical Colors’ ancient raw dyestuffs such as cochineal, madder roots, walnut hulls and weld flowers. The group also learned about the secrets to obtaining the best color through chopping, simmering and carefully extracting natural dye tinctures. As an added bonus, we took a step outdoors to gather dyestuffs from the … Read more

DIY: Indigo Dye with Cara Marie Piazza

Our good friend and Botanical Colors customer, textile artist Cara Marie Piazza, was recently featured in Gardenista using our rich indigo. Writer Sophia Moreno-Bunge caught up with Cara in her studio and wrote: “Indigo is an ancient color, a natural dye extracted from a plant of the same name, and the only true blue dye in nature. It’s been found in ancient Egyptian mummy wrappings and was so valued by the Romans as a luxury product, the story goes, that the only people who knew how to dye with indigo were hidden away in the forest,” says Moreno-Bunge. “Because of … Read more