Natural Dye Workshop at SSA

This past weekend Sarah Westrup and Analise Minjarez taught dyeing with natural colors. In particular cochineal, marigold and indigo. It was so much fun and very informative. To do it right and achieve permanent colors, we need to do a lot of prep work. But let me tell you, even if it is more time intensive then synthetic dyes, it is worth it.
Enclosed please see pictures from the workshop and my samples:

 Here we used a clay resist paste to prepare our fabric before we put it in the Organic Indigo Vat.

 

Here we used Iron and Alum Mordants Paste for dyeing with Marigold and Cochineal.

Samples

 

After the fabric was dyed:

Fearless team working the Indigo bath

more samples

And here are my pieces after boiling them for 10 min, washing them.

My Cochineal pieces looked a bit to dull for my taste, so I added some lime juice and get a stronger color.

Marigold piece

Cochineal, inner circle lime juice

Cochineal, brightened up with lime juice

Indigo

old curtain with Indigo

Sarah WestrupSarah WestrupAnalise MinjarezAnalise Minjarez