Category: DYES

The craft of making dyes and colour using either natural plants or chemical dyes.

How to Mordant Cotton Linen

How to Mordant Cotton and Linen Linen and cotton yarns require a different mordant preparation prior to using natural dyes. Difficulty Level: Average Time Required: 90 minutes Here’s How: Use clean, scoured […]

How to Make a Tin Mordant

How to Make a Tin Mordant A Tin (stannous chloride) mordant can be used to obtain different colour variations than Alum (another commonly used mordant for natural dyeing. Difficulty Level: Average Time […]

Red Cedar Dye

Red Cedar Dyed Fleece

Red Cedar Bark Natural Dye The Western Red Cedar – Thuja plicata, is British Columbia’s provincial tree. It grows to heights of over 50 metres tall. The bark is grey to reddish […]

Logwood Dye

Logwood Yarn

Natural Dyes: Logwood Logwood Natural DyeHaematoxylum campechianumLogwood comes from a tree native to the West Indies and the Yucatan Peninsula. The heartwood yields a dye that gives pinks, blues, purples and greens […]

Osage Orange

Osage Orange

Osage Orange Osage Orange Natural DyeMaclura pomiferaOsage Orange comes from a tree native to Arkansas and Texas. Its wood makes a clear lemon yellow dye. Post Views: 705

Himalayan Rhubarb

Himalayan Rhubarb Dye

Himalayan Rhubarb Himalayan Rhubarb Dye Recipe for Linen, Cotton and Cellulose FibresRheum Emodi for 100 grams of fibre20 grams Himalayan Rhubarb Dye Powder Post Views: 702

Alkanet Root Dye

Alkanet Yarn

Alkanet Root Dye Alkanet Root Dye Recipe for Linen, Cotton and Cellulose FibresAlkana Tinctoria for 100 grams of fibre20 grams Alkanet Root dye powderSoak the Alkanet in a glass jar overnight with […]

Lichen Dyes: Xanthoria

Xanthoria Lichen

Lichen Dyes: Xanthoria After a particularly windy night, I took a short walk along the Canal near our house. The wind had knocked down a lot of tree branches that were covered […]

Fungi Dye Sarcodon

Sarcodon Fungi 2

Fungi Dye: Sarcodon inbricatus A few weeks ago, I discovered what looked like Sarcodon imbricatus (that grow under pine trees) or Sarcodon Squamosus (that grow under spruce trees) fungi growing amongst the […]