Natural Dye Workshop

This weekend I hosted a natural dye demonstration/workshop in the A.I.R. studio here in Paducah.  On Saturday we started out by mordanting our fiber - treating it with Alum or Iron in order to help the fiber take up the dye and make the color more permanent.

Our fiber after they came out of the mordants.

We also cooked our dyes on Saturday, using local Blackberries, Black Tea, Brazilwood and Turmeric.

The dyestuffs

The dye baths

In order to keep the blackberry dye from going grey we didn't simmer our fabric in it, but let it sit overnight. On Sunday we dyed the rest of our fiber.  The participants were able to get a wide range of colors depending on the choice of the Alum or Iron mordant, the amount of time in the dye baths and the fiber they used.  Many people brought natural wool roving but we also had some silk scarves and some recycled material from wool coats.

The range of colors for each dye were:

                                Blackberry: Light purple to lavender to grayish purple

                                Tea: Warm tans to grays

                                Turmeric: Bright yellow to gold to brown

                                Brazilwood: Mauve to magenta to dark purple

Our dyed fabric drying outside

The two tones from the different mordants are easy to see in Tina's samples

Showing off the difference between silk and wool.

Georgia knotted her silk scarves before putting them in the
dye bath in order to get these beautiful textures.