Delving into dyeing yarns and fabrics naturally

I’ve recently taken an interest in the process of naturally dyeing yarn and fabric.

I always loved the thought of dyeing some yarns using botanical matter but the mordants used still felt a little too toxic to me for using in my kitchen. Whilst I appreciate that Alum is not the most toxic, it still wasn’t a mordant that appealed to me.

I then considered just dyeing with plants with strong tannins but feared the colour would fade quickly without mordanting it first so didn’t even experiment with that option. It also meant that I would be limited with botanical matters I could use.

After further research online, I recently discovered two amazing Natural Dye Books (Seasonal Plant Dyes by Alicia Hall and Botanical Colour At Your Fingertips by Rebecca Desnos). They both discuss using Soya Milk as a natural mordant.

The thought of using Soya Milk really appeals to me since it is completely non-toxic so I can safely use it in my kitchen.

In view of this, I now feel ready to delve into the world of natural dyeing and am very excited to see what I learn from this process.

Since I’m a complete beginner to botanical dyeing, I thought I would regularly blog about my experiments and what I’m learning through this process.

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