Things You'll Need:
- For Orange: Use either yellow onion skins, dried sassafras root, bedstraw roots, or oats.
- For Red: Use either crab apple flowers, cranberries, red peony petals, red tulip flowers, or beet roots.
- For Yellow: Use either ground apple tree bark, buttercup weed flowers, forsythia flowers, white onion skin, yellow tulip flowers, yellow pansy flowers, or ground tumeric with vinegar.
- For Green: Use either flowering crab apple (leaves and bark), iris flowers, blue and yellow pansy flowers together, or black oak bark (shredded).
- For Blue: Use either red cabbage head (shredded), blueberries, red onion skins, the blue petals only of the iris flower, or violet flowers.
- For Tan: Use either strong coffee (the liquid, not the grounds), tea stewed strong, or red maple bark (makes a rosy tan).
- For Brown: Use either flowering quince bark, walnut hulls, ground paprika, or the bark of the scarlet maple.
- Alum or white vinegar, muslin bag(s) for dyestuffs.
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Step 1
It's fun to dye cloth using natural products that leave a beautiful, organic color. I won't go into detail how certain fabrics will or won't take color, but for this, you will need to use only white or natural cotton, linen, wool, jute, silk, rayon, or homemade cloth. Wash the cloth before you dye it. The list of natural dyestuffs is listed in the Things You Need. Pick what color or colors you would like to use, gather what you need for that color and then the following directions are good for all.
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Step 2
Coarsely chop or shred one or more cups of fresh material OR two or more cups of dried material such as bark, roots, and spices. Put dyestuff into a muslin bag tied at the top. Use glass, enamel, or stainless steel for your dye pots. NEVER USE ALUMINUM OR COPPER.
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Step 3
Add 4 cups of water-rain water is best. Simmer dyestuff for 30-90 minutes. Use 1 tsp. alum per cup of dye or 1 tbsp. white vinegar to set the dye. Put pre-washed cloth into dye bath and simmer for 20 minutes or more, stirring occasionally. Don't actually boil it, and in the case of silk, keep the heat below 160 degrees. Or just soak it in the color for an hour. Rinse in water and keep rinsing until no more color bleeds from the fabric. Hang outside in the shade to dry.
