Dyeing with Plants

Natural dyes from plants have been used throughout history for decorating animal skins, fabrics, crafts, hair, and bodies. Kids love to color their world, and they need look no further than a family garden, a patch of weeds, their school grounds, and local grocery stores to find enough plants to yield a rainbow of colors.

Did You Know?

What fibers are best to use with plant dyes? Animal fibers, such as wool and silk, tend to take up plant dyes better than plant-based dyes, such as cotton and flax. This is because the protein fibers have scale-like molecules that provide more locations where pigment molecules can attach. Cotton and other plant fibers have smoother molecules with fewer sites for the pigment.

How can you tell what color dye can be made from a particular plant? Sometimes the flower color is an indicator of the dye these flowers will produce, but not always. Calendula flowers, for example, yield a yellow dye. But yellow black-eyed Susan flowers produce an avocado green dye. Also, different mordants can sometimes be used to create different colored dyes from the same plant.

Why do dyes from plants tend to be more subtle than synthetic dyes? Most plant parts contain a mixture of pigments, so they are not as pure and concentrated as synthetic dyes.

Plant Dyes of the Past

Since prehistoric times, humans have used plant pigments to enrich their lives. Historians and scientists believe that prehistoric animal skins and cave paintings dating back to 15,000 B.C. were dyed with plant pigments. They've discovered examples of early dyed fibers in Egypt dating to around 2000 B.C., and Chinese records revealing even earlier use of plants as fabric dyes. Ancient Britons, called Picts, used woad, a plant, to dye their bodies blue and frighten enemies in battle, while the British marched against the Americans in their well-known red coats dyed with madder root.

By the Middle Ages, dyeing had become an important industry in Europe. Farmers specialized in growing specific dye plants, and well-organized dyers guilds carefully guarded their craft secrets. Meanwhile, throughout the world, indigenous people were using native plant dyes for clothing, cosmetics, and crafts. In the 1800s a scientist named Sir Henry Perkin was trying to synthesize quinine to treat malaria but, as often happens in science, he made an entirely different discovery. He inadvertently produced the first synthetic lavender dye, which he called mauve. Mauve soon became the popular fashion color of the era. This discovery spelled the beginning of the end of the natural dye industry, and by the mid- to late 1800s, less expensive, more predictable synthetic dyes had replaced natural dyes. In this country today, natural dyeing is done primarily as a craft, often by those who knit and weave.

calendula flowers




red cabbage

Collecting Dye Plants

You and your kids can find plant materials for dyeing in several places. You can collect them in the wild, grow them, or purchase dye plants from a grocery store or catalog specializing in natural dyes. You may have some dye plants already growing in your garden, since you can extract interesting colors from a range of common garden and roadside weeds. If you collect plants or plant parts for dyeing, be sure to use plants that grow in abundance, taking care not to collect any rare or protected species.

You will need a lot of plant material. A four-to-one ratio of fresh plant material to wool (by weight) for dyeing is generally recommended, and plant fibers like cotton require even higher proportions. That is just a ballpark number, though. Kids can have fun experimenting with different proportions of plant materials.

The list below includes just a fraction of the plants others have used to produce dyes. Your results will depend on a host of factors, including soil type, moisture content, mordant used to bind the dye (if any), fabric, ripeness or freshness of the material, how finely you shred it, and proportion of plant material to fabric.

Garden Flowers

• aster (yellow)
• black-eyed Susans (green)
• chamomile (yellow)
• coreopsis (orangish)
• marigolds (yellow)
• sunflowers and seeds (gold)
• zinnias (yellow)

Weeds

• bindweed (yellow)
• cocklebur (brass)
• dandelions (magenta, with no mordant)
• dock (brass)
• giant ragweed (brass/gold)
• goldenrod (brass)
• mullein (yellow)
• redroot pigweed (brass/gold)

Other Dye Plants

• alder leaves (yellow)
• birch leaves (yellow/tan)
• black walnut hulls (black)
• red cabbage (pinkish)
• carrot tops (green)
• mint leaves (yellow)
• parsley leaves (yellow)
• spinach plants (green)
• tomato plants (pink/blue)
• turmeric (orangish)
• wild grapes (purple)
• wild mustard (yellow)

The ABCs of Using Plant Dyes

Materials:

• plant parts: flowers, leaves, roots
• white wool yarn or other wool fiber (wool dyes easily)
• enamel pot

Getting the Color Out

Once you and your kids have collected plant parts, it's fun to predict what colors might emerge from them. Then it's time to test your predictions. Here is one simple method for getting the color out:

Shred plant materials to expose more surface area from which color can be extracted.

Cover plant materials with water in an enamel pot. Simmer them for about an hour until the water is colored and the plant tissues look bleached, then strain the dye bath through cheesecloth or an old stocking to get rid of plant material. (Some dyers do simultaneous dyeing in which the plant materials are left in when the fabric is dyed. If you decide to do this, place the plants or the fabric in an old stocking or net bag to protect the material from direct contact.)

Dyeing the Fiber

Wash the fiber with soap before dyeing. It's important to remove dirt and oils that could interfere with the dye binding to the fabric. If you're using a skein of yarn, tie it loosely so the dye can penetrate well.

Add fiber to the dye bath, simmer it for 30 minutes to an hour, turning it gently. Stir and check the color every 10 minutes or so. Kids may want to experiment by leaving the fiber in for different amounts of time, even allowing it to cool and steep in the dye bath overnight. Or they might want to do some "tie dyeing" to see what patterns emerge when they tie knots, rubber bands, or otherwise prevent the dye from penetrating throughout the fabric.

Rinse dyed fiber with progressively cooler water and hang it to dry.

Courtesy the National Gardening Association's Kids Gardening Web site.