How to colour our world naturally
Naturally you say!?
Yes, completely naturally!
All we need are heaps of onion skins,,
so better start saving :-)
This is how I save mine up in the kitchen. You’d be surprised how fast they pile up.
I made that bag from cheesecloth but any breathable fabric will do, or a paper bag or a box...
Who would have thought onions could make you smile!?
They certainly made me smile when I saw these colours!
I dyed both the yarn and the cottons in this picture with onion skins.
Can you see how the colour is more intense on the wool than on the cotton? This is generally so in dyeing. Fibers like wool and silk are easier to take the dye.
Also, on my spindle you see 2 colours yarn.
The yellow one is removed from the dye after simmering for 45 minutes and the rusty coloured one stayed in the dye pot overnight. That’s the only difference between them! No added chemicals or complicated processes.
Now let’s start!
What do we need?
A big pot or a small pot.
Any type of pot that you can put on the fire will do. The amount of fabric you can dye depends on how big your pot is because the fabric needs to be completely and comfortably swimming in the dye.
You’ll need to be stirring that lot and steeping your fibers out of the pot and let them drop back in again. Like in this picture. The added oxygen helps the dye process.
(This is not onion skin, I took the picture in a workshop I attended)
Note: Perhaps you’ll be surprised to learn that the quality of the water you use and the materials of your pot and utensils have an effect on the colour you will achieve. It is a chemical reaction after all :-)
Now I don’t want you to go buy special pots and measurement instruments to check your water. You can do that later if and when you decide you want to be dyeing professionally and you need the exact same outcome with every dye bath.
Natural fabric
This is a big one.
The process won’t work if you’re using synthetic fabrics.
So we can dye protein fibers like wool, fur and silk, natural cellulose fibers like cotton, linen, hemp, jute, ramie, but also man-made cellulose fibers like rayon or viscose for example would be fine.
I choose to work with the first 2 categories but that is a personal preference.
A whole lot of onion skins
I say a whole lot because I don’t want to make this too scientific and I want you to have fun.
For a nice colour I would suggest you use a 1:1 in volume ratio of onion skins and fabric. So say you want to dye a handkerchief, you want a good handful of onion skins.
For now I would recommend you start with a small project and see what colours you get. Then you can decide to change some parts of your recipe. For example, more or less dye stuff, longer or shorter boiling time, longer cooling down time, leaving it to cool overnight…
You can start your dyeing experiments with small pieces of cotton or a mix of yarn, cotton and fleece for example. This is what I did and I really enjoyed seeing the different colours on the different fibers.
All the different shades in the picture are because of the different fibers (cotton and wool) and a shorter and longer dye bath as well as, for the bright orange, overnight soaking before I took it out.
You can also dye a fabric a second time, perhaps with another plant which will give you another colour.
A big strong spoon
for stirring and lifting the fabric up. You’ll need to be doing this a few times during the process. As I wrote, the air gives oxigen to the dye and the steeping is also beneficial to get the dye really all over your fabric.
So here we go!
I swear you did the hardest part already, reading through my introduction :-)
You take your pot and boil the hell out of those onion skins for about 15 minutes.
Pour the lot through a cheesecloth and then add your fabric to the dye water.
Let it simmer for anything between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on the colour intensity you want.
Be sure to steep up your fabric at least once or twice during this process.
I'm often inpatient and I enjoy looking in, taking some yarn out and leaving half in overnight… It’s just a lot of fun for a textile nerd like me
All you have to do now is rinse your fabric thoroughly, dry it and marvel at the colours you created together with Mother Nature.
Don’t you think she will revel in the knowledge that her secrets are put to good use?
I hope this blogpost may set you up for a great and colourful adventure.
Remember, you can hardly make mistakes, just try it and see where it brings you :-)
And do let me know how you get on, here in the comments.
By for now,
Marijke
