The Magical Wold of Natural Dyes

January 28, 2025

Yearrrrrs ago I saw an article in a magazine about dyeing fabric with tea. I knew that I had spot dyed my clothes with other things from the natural world like mustard, red wine and coffee (although I think that’s more commonly referred to as a stain). Before that day, it had never occurred to me to do it on purpose and change the colour of an entire garment. So I took something I had that I wished was brown and dunked it in a pot with a dozen or so tea bags. I did absolutely NO research but somehow it worked. Sort of. It came out a very light pinkish brown. I was going for a nice dark, rich brown (which it turns out is not really possible just with tea on its own) so I was pretty disappointed and left it at that. A few years later, I had grown marigolds in my garden. I heard that they were good for dyeing. Again, I did zero research. I threw the marigolds in a pot with some flannel. I didn’t weigh the marigolds or compare it to the weight of the flannel, I didn’t scour the fabric and I certainly didn’t employ the use of a mordant. As it turns out, those were all very important things that shouldn’t have been overlooked. My fabric did come out yellow. It was a very pale yellow and I did eventually make use of it but the colour wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. I figured natural dyeing just wasn’t for me.

Then my friend, Anna, started dyeing yarns with natural dye. I watched with jealousy as her neutral skeins of wool turned into these rich, beautiful colours. So many colours! And then one day she invited me in to see her dye some wool with madder root. It was like an explosion went off in my head and the nerdy part of my brain went into overdrive. I started devouring Instagram accounts, YouTube channels and reading books, so many books, all about natural dyeing. I just couldn’t get enough.

Then last week she invited me to come and see her dye with indigo. It was magical. We achieved so many different shades of blue, green and brown. All of them beautiful in their own way. The science involved in making those few hours possible was really humbling. And now I’m obsessed. Obsessed! You can rest assured that this isn’t my last post on the subject. There is a lot more dyeing in my future.