This skill building program will take you through the full natural dye process, using a combination of both traditional folk and modern dye techniques to successfully collect, extract, and use plant color on yarn and fabrics.

Let's go over what we need in order to set up a successful home dye station.

A few safety recommendations to keep in mind while dyeing.

We must use natural fibers, yarn, fabrics, or textiles when creating a successful natural dye project.

Flowers, leaves, roots, bark, berries- so many plant parts of so many different plants contain usable natural color.

Let’s plan our dye project together, following a simple dye recipe.

I will be dyeing two 100 gram, wool yarn skeins, using fresh marigolds from the garden. To prep the skeins, I will mordant them using Aluminum Potassium Sulfate.

Before we do anything, we must start with clean textiles- any grease, detergents, or residues on our yarn, fabric, or garments will interfere with our color results. We’ll learn the official cleaning methods here.

Pre-treating your textiles with a mordant is the key to long lasting color.

Now for the fun part- extracting the pigments from our plants to create our dye bath.

Time to get those textiles in the pot!

All that's left to do is rinse our freshly dyed creation and let it dry!

Congratulations on completing your first natural dye project!

Learn the process of using flowers, leaves and other plant materials to imprint natural designs on fabric or clothing.

Using fresh plant materials and stencils, we can simply add detailed designs to our fabric.

Crisp flower and leaf imprints can be made using only a hammer and some mordanted fabric.