Up-cycled Natural Dye Fabric Project
As I’ve been at home, figuring out what is next and who I am and what life will look like as we are in the evolving stage, I’ve been wanting to get more crafty. I’ve always loved working on crafts and putting time aside to paint, draw, get my hot glue gun out or something. Recently, I was working on a Porthos Studio project with my friend Sam – she owns Standard Wax which is an amazing candle company – on her holiday launch shoot. She asked me if I would be interested in being a part of her creative team for the shoot, and of course I couldn’t turn it down. When I was creating the concepts for her four scenes, one of them being gift wrapping station at home, I couldn’t help but want to find a way to marry her no waste lifestyle, my up-cycle creations and come up with something that could be special for her shoot. Enter my natural fabric dye project!
One of the things I love about the holidays is gifts – wrapping them, picking them out, figuring out who gets what – it’s just the best! But it is also extremely wasteful. When Sam said yes to my idea of a gift wrapping set up in her home for her holiday candle line, I was excited to figure out a way to merge things that we both love that could also not be a complete waste.
I’ve seen a lot of DIY posts of projects in this nature, and they go get brand new fabric. I don’t mind that idea, but I do think the point is to try to create more waste. So, goodwill was definitely on the list as my first stop. I headed straight to the linen section where they had second hand sheets, towels, curtains, pillowcases – you name it! Goodwill probably has. I found a couple of window curtains that had this beautiful tweed like texture, and felt like a cotton/linen mix. I was (kind of?) positive that they would hold the dye how I would want. I scoured through the pillow cases and actually found some that had a great texture to them, and the colors were beautiful! Sometimes, pillowcase or material like that, are much better after numerous washes. Goodwill more than likely has fabric that has been washed multiple times which gives it a bit more worn in feeling; you know, not too stiff.
After Goodwill, I stopped at my local Safeway and grabbed the produce I needed. I actually followed some of the instructions from a DIY blog post I had found on pinterest, and made my shopping list off of that. I had three color combinations that I wanted to create; yellow, red, brown. They would all be in varying shades since you can’t make an exact shade when workin with homemade natural dye.
For the yellow dye, I wanted to work with turmeric and golden beets. For the red dye, I wanted to work with beets and avocado (seeds & skin). And lastly, for the brown, I decided to work with cloves, cinnamon and black tea. There are all other sorts of dye baths you can create with berries, greens, different spices, onions – you name it!
Once I got home, I prepped my ingredients and decided to start in order. Firs tup was my yellow dye bath. I chopped up my golden beets, placed them in a pot of boiling water and added about 2 tablespoons of turmeric. I really had NO method for my madness – I just went for it. The dye for my yellow batch was definitely YELLOW. I was looking for something that was more golden mustard. I think if I just worked with the golden beets, I would have gotten a color I was desiring more. The turmeric was heavy in my mix, so I would also be interested in trying this again with not nearly as much turmeric. The red dye bath was prepped the same way by chopping up some beets, cleaned out some avocados (don’t freak – I kept the green part for us to snack on), and added the washed off skins & seeds to a pot of boiling water. Again, no real method for the madness but the bath came out great. Definitely was a more red and not as much of a purple. Which, is what I was going for. Lastly, the brown which was probably the easier of them all. I put a fresh pot of boiling water on the stove, added about 6 bags of black tea, 2 tablespoons of cloves and about 4 cinnamon sticks. I am SO glad I did this one last because it made my house smell SO INCREDIBLE!! I was like, OH HELLO FALL! It was great. This was my happiest dye bath out of the three – I just loved the subtle tone of the color and it looked different in the different pieces of materials I dyed.
This project was really fun, and there are definitely plenty of ways you can experiment with it. Leaving the material in the bath longer than shorter, not rinsing in cold water, adding vinegar to your dye bath – the options are pretty unlimited.
I loved how my material pieces came out, and the best part was I now have some beautiful material that I will be able to use for gifts this holiday season and won’t be throwing money away on wrapping paper or throwing more unwanted waste in the trash.
What are other things you could naturally dye with a produce style dye bath? Backpack, shoes, shirt? Leave your ideas in the comments below!
