{how to} naturally dyeing fabric with turmeric

The smell of turmeric on fabric takes me straight back to when my mother made fairy costumes for my sister and me. She dyed white singlets and endless swathes of tulle in a big pot of turmeric. I can't remember watching her making them, but I can remember that we both smelled like that wonderful spice for the whole party. What sweet flower fairies we were!

Lately the colours and designs coming from the turmeric dye pots is quite beautiful indeed. I thought I'd share my process with you, so you too can dye some pure golden sunshine.

Some notes before you start: remember that natural dyeing and some natural plant based dyes can be toxic. If you intend to boil and dye in your kitchen, please only do so in a well ventilated space and use a pot you won't be using for food purposes. Do some research before you head out foraging for plant material. Wear gloves to protect your hands from any chemicals or chemical reactions.

Also, the process of natural dyeing is such that results vary with materials and quantities used. You cannot expect to achieve perfection or repeat performances; you will instead be surprised and amazed each time you unfold your fabric - and that is better than perfection any day!

You will need:

Some plain undyed natural fibres. You can use linen, hemp, cotton, wool or silk. Silk is often the easiest to achieve brighter colours than plant based fibres; but you'll find through experiments that different fibres give different results. Use pieces of fabric, as well as lengths of yarn.

Turmeric powder, from your health food shop or the spice section of your supermarket. Find the brightest freshest powder you can find. 

White vinegar or alum (which can be found in a gardening shop - it's the chemical used to colour change hydrangea flowers), to use as a mordent.

A big saucepan, glass jars with lids, rubber bands, pegs, string.

:: 4L of water, 2 heaped tablespoon of alum, and 3 heaped tablespoons of turmeric.

To start with:

Soak your material in cold water, so that it is totally wet. This allows the dye to permeate all the way through. 

Half fill your pot with tap water. Add alum and turmeric powder. The amount of powder you use will depend on how much you are dyeing. I don't measure.

Bring the water to the boil, and add your wrung-out materials (you can strain off any un-disolved powder before adding your fabric, but I don't bother). At this stage you can either let it simmer on the stove top until the desired colour has been achieved, or you can fill your glass jars with the fabric and the dye water and place it outside in the sun to continue dyeing. This is called solar dyeing. 

I love solar dyeing as it gives you the chance of watching the colour develop over days to a week. You aren't using gas or electricity to dye your items, just harnessing the heat of the sun (you could even build a solar oven if you wanted to boil your water that way!). And those colour-filled jars sure look pretty sitting in your garden. (Just make sure the lid is tightly secured and your jars are away from children and pets). 

Once you are happy with your colour, rinse out the fabric. Hang to dry in the shade; your piece will fade in full sun. The alum helps to keep it colourfast, but most natural dyes will fade over time. Turmeric is sometimes a fugitive dye, which means it doesn't last as long as some other natural dyes; but I have found that some fabrics take the colour and keep it better than others, so testing your own fabrics is the best thing.

To achieve the different patterns on my fabrics I use the following techniques:

Shibori folding:

This is an age-old Japanese technique of folding or stitching fabric to achieve amazing patterns and shapes. This is an art-form in itself. At this stage, I have neither the time nor inclination to be stitching work just to unpick it (though I crazily admire those who do!), maybe one day I will...

For this pattern, I simply fold and continue to fold the fabric into squares onto itself. Then secure it tightly with pegs or clips along the edges, or wrap it with twine (which will also dye).

Dip dyed:

An easy and beautifully effective way of allowing the natural process of the coloured water moving up the fabric. This always reminds me of the marks left on sand by waves - you know that slightly transparent line left behind. Ombre continues to be popular - so why not try your hand at making mountain peaks. 

Start with one end of your fabric in the dye, and the rest hanging out. Leave for at least half and hour. Then slowly move the fabric down into the water a little bit more. Do this as many times as you want, each time leaving it for about half an hour in between. The amount of time you wait before you lower the fabric in, will determine how dramatic the colour change is. Being a natural dye, this process will not be as predictable as with chemical dye. 

Scrunch effect:

I simply tightly scrunch and then tie (with string that will become coloured as well) or peg the fabric. Place it into the glass bottle and cover with dye. Put a stone on top to weigh it down if need be. Leave this for at least a few days, without agitating or moving it about. The dye will settle into different sections of the scrunch to create the marks; if you move it too many times it won't be as dramatic pattern.

Please share with me if you doing any dyeing. Would love to see your results. Please email me if you have any questions at all.

new monkey-play (with easter eggs in pretty foils)

Can I tell you how sad I was to find out that Picnik was packing up it's pretty little rug and shooing away the ants. I relied on Picnic to make my blog headers and other little bits and pieces for online editing. Was easy, simple, quick and do-able with no long training videos or downloads.

So - it was with much excitement that I read on Kimono Reincarnate's blog about a new site called PicMonkey. I jumped straight on to have a try. EASY easy I tell you, and fun and so much excellent stuff there.

Currently there is no collage option, which is what I liked about Picnik, but they say coming soon. So I can wait.

Go check it out for yourself. These are some of the fun edits I did - the heart / arrow one being my favourite, probably because I don't generally go in for that myself though *heart* it when someone else does it....

colour playing

I just found this, from a link on Pinterest. I really do learn so much from Pinterest - don't you!!

How to generate your own colour palette from an image. I don't use photoshop - but if you do, then you probably already know how to do this is. If you don't - then visit here for the tutorial, then here to get to the color palette generator.
So much fun. I'm addicted already. I have seen these around the web, but never knew how to do it. Yah!
{The image does have to be online - but all my good ones are mostly on flickr or my blog or instagram(search petalplum) anyway - so that's no worry for me.....}. 

hem

I just found this link from Voodoo Rabbit blog, with some simple and great little tips on how to hem your clothing. Check it out if you want some new ideas on how to finish the edges. Unless, like me, you just keep them raw because you're too lazy to bother finishing up that last little bit to make your new skirt or dress look perfect! (seems I'm not the only one, so that's okay).

 

My favourite is a faced hem, but with a really big facing, which means you have the hem stitch line about 5+cm above the hemline. I like the look of it, as it's a bit different to the regular 1/2cm (or less) of most seams. Bit designery, no? That's how I finished this skirt hem.

{Bound Hem}

{Faced Hem}

*All images used with thanks from Craftzine.