Natural Elderberry Dye (on organic cotton undergarments)

Remember how I was cooking down elderberries the other week? I used most of the elderberries I had growing in the medicinal recipe I put in the freezer... but one little bunch was left on the bush and I wanted to experiment with using it as a dye on some organic cotton undergarments (wife beater undershirt & thong panties) that I got from American Apparel's organic section online.

The undergarments were un-dyed to begin with, just the natural organic cotton color which is a slightly off white. (For those of you with MCS { chem sensitivities} I found that these undies were not overly chemical smelling, and that AA is doing a fairly good job with their organic line. The smell they did hold washed out really easy for me.)

HOW TO ::::

I believe there are various ways to prepare the elderberry dye - but what I did this time was cook it down with a lil' bit of apple cider vinegar and then let the cotton clothing sit in the dye bath overnight.

I am pretty certain you can get a MUCH darker color from this if you have tons of elderberries (which I didn't have anymore). Also, i think for a blue/ purple color that is dark possibly not cooking them at all, but crushing them up into a liquid, adding the vinegar and then putting the garments in would be really awesome, and likely a very deep dye.

I hung them out in the sun to dry, and as with all natural dyes the color will lighten as the fabric dries. This small amount of elderberries made a nice shade of pink... that leans on the lavender side.

Pretty earthy & cool!

Xoxoxo

Natural Plant Dye: Non Poisonous Sumac

Not all sumac is the bad stuff that gives a person a poison ivy like reaction (like this), the sumac pictured here was used by native americans to make plant dyes and even a citrus tasting drink akin to lemonaid. Red sumac, also known as Staghorn, grows all along the roads here and up on open hills- so I rode my bike about a mile from my house to gather some to make non toxic dye with! The highest goal I have for making organic paints and dye is for it to not be poisonous in any way whether chemical or natural (which is the only downfall for poke berries, ya can't eat 'um) - staghorn sumac is one that can even be ingested- so it gets the 5 star award for being totally eco friendly and safe!
I cut the berry clumps off with a knife (the stem is fairly soft but might be hard to break by hand), and I gathered them in a hemp bag. The sumac is self contained, it wasn't bursting open and staining anything along the way. It has a sugary looking substance coating the each little berry.
I put the sumac berries in a pot, with some salt and water. I brought it to a boil and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I think the more you mush them, the longer it cooks, the deeper a color that can be achieved- even though this most likely will never be as opaque & dark as poke berries or tumeric. As far as I could tell from the consistency it makes a better watery dye, then a paint, but I will keep you posted on that! I did a quick short experiment, just to see if the red-ish brown water would stain an undyed organic cotton shirt.
I was surprised how easy the color took to the fabric, mainly because it looked even darker in the shirt then it did in the pot. It will dry a shade lighter then when it's freshly wet, probably making this a peachy red, with brown overtones. I am impressed with how nice the color came out- but what's even better is the SMELL! This stuff smells yummy, and when it comes to making DIY dye that is a huge bonus! Toxic dyes smell like crap and are unhealthy to inhale, to have against our skin, and the throw down the drain. If someone wanted to try this as an organic paint, it might work best if painting on fabric instead of canvas or paper, using this in combo with other natural dye stains to achieve depth and variations in darkness to light.
Yay, for sumac... more plant dyes to come.
Please share your own natural dye experiments!!!
XoXo

DIY: Making Natural Non Toxic Dye

This week I have been spending a good deal of time in the kitchen, cooking up natural dyes. I am actually surprised that after 7 years of art in college I had never learned to make paints, toxic or non toxic. But after reading an awesome post on Crafting a Green World about how to make your own milk paint, I got to thinking even deeper into how to make pigments since the colored pigment can be as toxic as the binder. What I found out was a creative revelation that I can not stop cooking up! My personal criteria for creating pigment/dye is this:
* It can not be toxic in any way, even if the substance is natural.
* It has to be in abundance and easily gathered in nature (don't ever take so much that the plant can't survive or make seeds.)
I totally hit the jack pot when I walked outside to find that my landlady next door has a plum tree with a gazillion plums that had already fallen to the ground and were being eaten by bugs, rotting, fermenting, gushy ect......
My dye experiment begins....

I began by skinning the plums and using only the dark burgundy red skins - I left the fruit for the wild critters, and kept the seeds and planted them - in hopes to grow some of my own plum trees.

The supplies you'll need to make your own fabric dye are as follows: water (filtered or spring is best) salt or vinegar, spare pot not used for cooking, something to measure with if you like to get things exact.

I used salt as a dye fixative, since I was using fruit, but if you are making your dye from flowers, leaves, plants etc - then it is suggested to use vinegar.

The recipe I found was SALT: 1/2 CUP SALT TO 8 CUPS COLD WATER, VINEGAR: 4 PARTS COLD WATER TO 1 PART VINEGAR.

I simmered my fabric in the salt fixative for approx. 1 hour, then rinsed and rung out - before putting the fabric in the dye.

Once the fabric had the fix in it, I went ahead and dumped the plum skins in some fresh water and simmered those for a while. It was so amazing how red and beautiful the water turned right away...

I strained out the skins and returned the dye to the pot and then start dipping the locally woven organic cotton into the plum dye! How freakin' awesome, cause it started turning almost hot pink right away and stuck right to the fabric.Then I let the fabric simmer lightly in the dye for a richer color for about an hour, all steamy, hot and sooooo pretty!

I allowed the fabric to sit in the dye overnight to make sure it had the darkest outcome possible since when it is rinsed and dried the color will be alot lighter.

I hung it to dry in the sun, until the rain came and I moved it to this window....

Isn't it pretty in pink? All that from a couple discarded plums! Yay! It's really easier then it looks and the whole process was so relaxing and fun. There are fantastic lists of natural stuff you can use for dye in just about every cool shade of color you can imagine. Go to http://www.pioneerthinking.com/ for a complete list of plants, berries, nuts and bark that can make a rainbow of fun, safe colors. Plus get more detailed instructions-a simple google search for "make your own natural dye" turns up tons of recipes for a wide variety of colors.