Natural Dyeing at Home

While most things done “naturally” are considered safe, dyeing naturally is one that can quickly get into questionable and unsafe territory. If you stick to the basic ingredients for dyes, mordants and modifiers, you’ll be fine. For those who have problems with heavy metals or will be draining dye water into a septic tank, the colors will be a bit more limited.

Easy to find and safe options are protein or plant fiber yarn and kitchen scraps. Alum can be used as a mordant and using a copper or iron pot can further change the color. That brings up another hurdle with natural dyeing, repeating colors consistently is difficult. Saturation can change from harvest to harvest, water pH, what the yarn was finished with or the soap you used, if any, in a pre-wash.

Natural dyeing is fun to do if you keep things in perspective and make safe decisions. You can use some of the “dangerous” as long as you do it safely. Like I mentioned above using a copper or iron pot could change the results of a color but won’t hurt you or the ground water anymore than if you had cooked dinner in that pot.

I have even used rhubarb leaves as a modifier because of the tannin. They are poisonous so please be careful! Use a pot that is for dye purposes only!

The biggest variable in natural dyeing is your water source. I don’t care if you use the same brand, same tap or same whatever, if time has elapsed in-between the water is probably different in a way that will change the resulting color, even if only a little. I’ve used bottled water, rain water, tap water from the best city in Colorado, and water from our well when we lived on one; it all is a little different and that’s okay.
Natural dyeing is about doing something yourself and it being unique, that water “problem” is just part o the process. If you’d like to test and track the pH of different dye baths this is something that you can change by adding some vinegar to make it more acidic or adding some baking soda to make something less acidic. Add small amounts at a time and retest. Using the same water source for the entire dye job with limit surprises.

Natural dyeing is all about ratios. You will want to have a really good gram scale, many kitchen scales will work. You will also need a candy thermometer.

Knowing how many grams of fiber (WOF – weight of fiber) is the first thing to take care of because all the other ratios are based on that.

Each mordant has its own ratio, I put them in a table below.

Mordant	Alum	Copper	Iron	Tin
Percent to WOF	8%	2%	2%	3%

Modifiers are made into a bath and don’t require heat, just time and can be used more than once.

Each dye stuff (onion skins) have a different amount that they need but generally speaking it will be at least a one to one ratio, if not more.

Basic steps for natural dyeing:
1. Weigh your fiber and write it down.
2. Wet out your fiber to prepare it to receive mordant or dye.
3. Mordant your fiber if you’re going to. There are arguments about if the dye fixes to the fiber better if you let the mordant dry or not. I have no input here. I like to save water and go from mordant to dye pot. Be sure to rinse before the dye bath!
4. Mix the dye stuffs. Note this might need to be started the day before you’re ready to prep your fiber.
5. Dye the fiber.
6. Let the pot sit until it has cooled.
7. Rinse and lay or hang to dry.

Each of the steps above has even more detail. I am going to share SOME of the options by sharing with you the recipe and instructions for dyeing some fiber with onion skins. If you want to learn more or dive deeper I recommend getting into the book Wild Color and look for other creators on the internet to go even further. I’m here for questions but I am not an expert, this is just something I enjoy and wanted to share with you!

Dye fiber with onion skins

Materials:
50g of natural fiber protein or plant fiber (divided in 25g pieces)
75g of yellow onion skins (note that this is 1.5x the WOF)
2 large bowls (glass or stainless steel is best)
1 large stainless steel pot
1 stainless steel slotted spoon
2g of alum (this is 8% of WOF)
water source (see “Water” above)
Directions:
Soak the fiber, one bundle in each bowl, for at least 30 minutes, up to over night.
Dissolve the alum in a small amount of water in the stainless steel pot. Add the contents of one bowl to the stainless steel pot and slowly warm to 185F / 85C and hold for 30 minutes. Let cool.
After the fiber has cooled, drain and rinse carefully. Rinse out the stainless steel pot.
Prepare the dye bath:
Place the onion skins in the stainless pot, cover with water. Heat slowly until the temperature reaches 185F / 85C and hold for 30 minutes. Cover and let cool 2 hours to overnight to get the most color from the onions.
Dye your fiber
Remove the onion skins. Add the fiber, add more water, on the side of the pot, if needed to cover the fiber. Heat to 185F / 85C again and hold for 30 minutes. Turn off heat, cover the pot and leave to sit over night to cool.
Finish the job
Remove the fiber from the dye bath, the two bundles should be different colors, evenly if just slightly different. One mordanted and the other not. Carefully rinse under lukewarm water. Remove excess water, NO WRINGING!, and lay flat or hang to dry.

The photo above shows all my hanks of yarn that are 25 colors from dye bath. I did this with onions, cochineal, madder and avocado. More a bit more detail on these watch THIS video.

Happy Making!