dyeing in the kitchen.

so after seeing etsy's natural dyeing tutorial, i went ahead and gave it a try. we already had some tumeric, and i gathered skins off all the onions in the fridge. (that won't hurt them, right?) results!

natural dyeing

left to right: tumeric, vidalia onion skins, leftover onion, undyed.
(click to view the flickr page if it's cut off. sorry!)

i like the color from the onion skins the best. it's a really nice warm light brown. the lighter colored one is from after the first batch. it looked like there was still lots of dye left, but it came out pretty light. the tumeric made a great mustard-y color, but i had trouble rinsing it out.. lots of clumpy spice-bits.

it was fun, but as i suspected, the dye doesn't really hold well with only salt as a mordant. i rinsed the skeins so many times and they never stopped bleeding. it was fun though, and could probably be used to make something that didn't need to be washed often.

also, a quick shot of the hat made from the knittydirtygirl batts i spun...

finished.

it looks way awesome-er in person. and now i am hooked on spinning crazy batts...

Comments

marin said…
very interesting, never thought of using onion skins. it is a gorgeous color!
September 16, 2008 at 5:11 PM
Stela said…
how cool! I like the tumeric color
September 17, 2008 at 12:54 AM
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