Colours from Nature

Colours from Nature: A Dyer's Handbook  is by Jenny Dean and published by Search Press Limited (Great Britain, 2009). This is another book of treasures for the home dyer. It is full of information about dyeing, inspiration for gathering ingredients, recipes, and photographs showing the beautiful colors that are possible from nature.

Image copyrighted by Search Press Limited

The table of contents covers all the basic information including equipment and safety, preparing materials for dyeing, mordanting, and gathering and extracting dye colors from plant sources, and dyeing fiber. She also provides information about other dye sources, such as shellfish (Murex) and insects (Kermes, Lac/Sticklac, and Cochineal). Dean provides over 30 pages of recipes organized by color, and a full bibliography packed with information. She takes the point of view to consider the environment and human impact when gathering dye sources (for example, lichen can take 20-30 years to grow, so harvest only from limbs that have fallen to the ground). She also recommends avoiding the use of metal mordants since they can be toxic for people and the environment.

Dean defines three categories of dyes, summarized here:

• Substantive dyes – those that are rich in tannins, such as bark, leaves, or fruits of certain plants (like walnut, oak, and sumac).
• Vat dyes – those that require some kind of fermentation, such as Indigo or Tyria or Imperial purple (from shellfish). The coloring matter is not soluble in water so can't be simmered to extract. Instead the dye material coats the fiber, and may appear almost colorless as the fiber emerges from the dye vat. The color develops with exposure to oxygen or light.
• Adjective dyes – those that require a mordant in order for colors to fully develop and be color fast. Most mordants are metal based.

This is another book that I recommend for the home dyer. It is full of useful information, and goes a little deeper about dye sources than I've seen in other books. I also appreciate her concern for using natural materials and avoiding those that could be harmful to humans and the environment.

Dye Project: Red Cabbage

For this home dyeing project we're working with red cabbage (Brassica oleracea), also called purple cabbage, red kraut, or blue kraut. The cabbage leaf color depends on the pH of the soil. In acidic soils the leaves are reddish, in neutral soils they are more purple, and in alkaline soils they are greenish-yellow. We'll be dyeing more white cotton dish towels, and using the experience we gained when dyeing with black walnuts  (see Dye Project: Black Walnuts). We'll actually try two projects – the first is to dye the fabric with a cabbage dye bath, the second is to change the pH value of the dye bath to see how it changes the fabric dye results.





Red cabbage is typically available year round at the grocery stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. I picked out a couple of dense red-purple cabbage heads and chopped them up, using one cabbage head for each project. The color pigment is so beautiful (but of course the color of the source does not predict the end result)!

Chopped head of red cabbage

Cotton dish towels pre-washed and treated with a salt mordant

To prepare the dish towels for the dyeing process, I washed the fabric in the washing machine, and treated the fabric with a salt mordant. I boiled the fabric in a mixture of 1 part salt to 16 parts water (with additional water to cover, as needed) for an hour. This is described and demonstrated in Mordants and Fixatives. I didn't scour the fabric.

Straining the dye from the cabbage pulp

Purple cabbage dye

I used our patio for my outdoor studio (cabbage is quite pungent). To a gallon of water I added the chopped leaves of a head of cabbage, plus 1 tablespoon of salt for every 1/2 cabbage as an extra mordant, then simmered the mixture for about half an hour. These proportions are recommended by Samantha James of All Natural Dyeing (search for red cabbage).  After boiling, I strained the mixture through cheese cloth and returned the dye to two pans (splitting it so that each pot could easily accommodate three dish towels). I brought the dye bath back to a boil, immersed the dish towels,  reduced the heat, and let them simmer for an hour. I let the towels soak over night to deepen the blue color.

Let the towels soak in the dye over night

Rinse the towels thoroughly in water

The next day I rinsed the towels until the water ran clear. The fabric lost quite a bit of  color in the process, but they were still a lovely shade of blue. I hung the towels to air dry, then ran them through the washing machine to make sure the color was set.

Batch 1 - dark blue towels after rinsing

This seemed like a successful project, but, several months later, I retrieved the dish towels from the drawer in which they were stored to find they had faded to a dingy white! The short list of possible causes:

• I did not scour the fabric, so waxes, oils, sizing, or other treatments may have remained on the fabric even though I pre-washed the dish towels. Any deposits on the fabric surface would prevent the dye from bonding with the fibers.
• Salt may not be an adequate mordant for cabbage. 
• Cabbage dye may not be colorfast.

After several months, the towels had faded to a dingy white!

For the second project I changed the pH value of the dye bath to see how it would change the color of the fabric. I used the process described above to create the basic dye, and then split it between two pans.

• To one pan I added 2 tablespoons of white vinegar to make the dye bath more acidic (should turn the bath more pink).  
• To one pan I added 1 tablespoon of ammonia to make the water more alkaline (should turn the bath more blue).

Left: vinegar added to make the dye bath more acidic.
Right: ammonia added to make the dye bath more alkaline.

Left: after the initial chemical reaction the towels appear pink-blue.
Right: the towels appear more blue.

The chemical reaction in the dye bath was very promising. You can see how the pan on the left seems to show both pink and blue, and the one on the right first turns an (unexpected) bright green and then calms down to a blue.

Batch 2 - after rinsing, all the dish towels are pale blue.

After simmering the dish towels in the two dye baths and then rinsing the fabric until the water ran clear, I ended up with six blue dish towels!

And, several months later, these blue dish towels had faded to a dingy white just like the first batch! This was a little disappointing, to end up with 12 dingy white dish towels (especially when the initial blue color was so appealing, and the chemical reaction in the dye bath was so promising)!

Several months later, all 12 of the dish towels are dingy white!

But that is part of the fun (and pain) of dyeing with plants. For my next experiment, I plan to scour the dish towels (and not just pre-wash them), and to use stronger mordant like a colorless tannin such as Gallnut, Tara, or some Sumacs (described in the Maiwa Guide to Natural Dyes, see the Mordants section, under Tannins).

The Chinese Elm Drops a Branch

Our Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia) recently dropped a branch after several days of intense rain. The tree has Anthracnose, a slow moving fungal disease that eats away at the bark and causes cankers. Eventually a branch may become weak and die.

Branch descended from the Chinese Elm (Spring 2019)

The tree dropped another branch about two years ago, in similar circumstances, after the heavy rains that brought us out of the drought. What's unique about the tree is that, in both cases, the limbs descended slowly, making muted snapping sounds as the compromised wood fibers gave way. The branches did not come crashing down as they might have in other trees.

Another branch blocked gate (Spring 2017)

Our arborist has been monitoring the disease over the last 20 years, trying to keep the tree for as long as possible. It has lovely mottled bark, shiny single-toothed leaves, a graceful stance, and provides lovely dappled shade along side our big oak tree. So far we have been able to save the tree. As always, we called Brende and Lambe to clear away the fallen branch, aesthetically prune what remains, and assess the safety of the tree.

The branch has been removed and the tree still provides shade (Spring 2019)

Search for Dyes: Carl Peter Thunberg

This year we are taking a second look at our Linnaeus Apostles, but this time using a filter for textiles and plant dyes. The "apostles" were sent out from the University of Sweden in the 1700s by their professor, Carl Linnaeus, to gather plant specimens, name and classify them using the binomial naming system, and identify plants that could be economically useful to Sweden. Our guide in this venture is Viveka Hansen, and her work Textilia Linnaeana: Global 18th Century Textile Traditions & Trade.

Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828) spent nine years in the field in Europe, South Africa, Japan, Batavia (also called Java), and Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka). During this time he collected, named, and observed the thousands of plants he encountered. He was not as interested in textiles and related subjects as some of his fellow apostles, but his notes do include information and observations. As a student he had an opportunity to travel to France, where he visited the tapestry factory Les Gobelins, and commented on the fashions of the day.

Thunberg described Garcinia mangostana used to produce a black dye.
Illustration from Selected Flowers, Fruit, and Foliage from the Island of Java, by Berthe Hoola van Nooten (1817-1892).
Public domain in the United States.

While in South Africa (1772-1775), he wrote about the local Hottentots, who used sheepskin and calfskin and other animal hides for their garments, typically decorated with shells instead of any plant or mineral dyes.

Thunberg left for Japan in 1775, and spent six months in Batavia en route to and from Japan. There he gathered information about the Javanese people, their clothing, and fabrics. Batavia was a thriving trade center for the Dutch East India Company, so he had the opportunity to learn about cotton, silk, linen, weaving, and resist dyeing, as well as some of the plants used for dyeing.

He cites Indigofera tinctoria as the most important commodity for the trading company; it was used to produce the highest quality blue dye. Garcinia mangostana was gathered in January when the rind turned deep purple, and used for dyeing black. Morinda citrifolia root produced red (similar to the common madder Rubia tinctoria, except dyeing with Morinda citrifolia could be done in lukewarm water). Many of the dye recipes and dye processes were passed from Indonesian mothers to their daughters and held in secret, so Thunberg could not provide many details.

Thunberg spent 15 months in Japan from 1775-1776. Although his movements were restricted and he was sequestered on the man-made island of Deshima, he earned trust and was able to interact freely with local Japanese doctors, take day trips to Nagasaki to collect plants for medicinal purposes, and travel to Yeddo (now Tokyo) to honor the Shogun Teharu. His notes report on dyeing yarn and fabrics in Japan, and plants used for dyeing. He also reports on shibori, the resist dyeing process that is unique to Japan.

People in the provinces used Rubia chordata for red dye (also related to the common madder root). For blue, people used "Polygonum Chinese, barbatum, and avuncular" which are similar to indigo. The leaves were dried, pounded, made into small cakes, and sold in shops. The cakes were mixed with ashes and boiled in water (the stronger the mix, the darker the blue), and used to dye linen, silk, and cotton. In his work, Flora Japonica, Thunberg later describes Serratula tinctoria, or saw-wort for yellow; Carthamus tinctoria or safflower for yellow silk; and Crocus sativus also for yellow.

In 1777, Thunberg started his journey home, and spent six months in Ceylon en route. He records little about textiles or dyeing, but reports how coconut fiber was used to produce a fabric called coir, and notes about the fine quality of cotton from India.

Learn More

Textilia Linnaeana: Global 18th Century Textile Traditions & Trade by Viveka Hansen, fifth volume in the Mundus Linnae Series, issued by the IK Foundation & Company (London 2017). See pages 253-282.