12 Months of Natural Dyeing

Fibre Preparation

Fibre preparation is a very important and necessary part of the natural dyeing process. Without it you will not produce either vibrant or secure colours. In the past 6 months we have concentrated basically on protein fibres. These materials which include wool, silk, alpaca or any other type of animal fibre are the easiest and more stable materials to dye with so it just made sense to start with these!

Natural Dyes From the Kitchen

In these posts we look at a few natural dye sources that you can find in your own kitchen! I have shown pictures of the results from each post, which may not be the prettiest pictures, but will give you a quick view of colours that you may be wanting to achieve. Please refer to the original post to see how these colours then stand up to washing and sunlight.

Coffee and Tea

Natural Dyes From the World Around

Living in the Blue Mountains of sunny Australia, there is inspiration all around. Our eucalyptus trees come in a variety of bark colours and our natural flowers are vibrant and full of colour. Even if you don’t live in Australia, I hope these posts can inspire and help you to find your own sources of colour in the world around you. Remember natural dyes can be found anywhere.

Wattle Trees

Natural Dyes From the Veggie Patch

For those that like to grow there own food, there is a wealth of dye material on hand. Unfortunately growing vegetables is virtually impossible where I live. It basically creates open warfare between myself and the possums, which I really don’t want in my life. Instead I buy my veg from the fresh food markets allowing for no hostilities in the backyard. I am then privileged enough to be introduced to the new young possums each spring, so basically it is a win win situation.

Natural Dyes From the Garden

The garden is such an inspiration for colour and beauty no matter what type of art or craft you love. In these post we look at how flowers can quite often give good and surprising results to our dyeing experience.

Indigo

During the last 12 months there have been 2 posts on indigo. In neither have I actually looked at the process I use for indigo dyeing as there are so many different ways to do this and the process is quite complicated. Maybe in the next few months I will do a run down of my process. In the posts we have looked at different mordanting process while dyeing with cotton as well as some different colour combinations. The links are below as well as pictures of the colours we have achieved.