I had the great pleasure of hosting our Tchoup Industries team from past and present for a natural dye party. Cotton garments were dyed with golden onion skins and loquat leaves. This process provides plenty of time for creativity and catching up. Here's how it went if you'd like to also give it a try!
Step 1: Gather your fabrics. Protein fibers (silk, wool) or cellulose fibers (cotton, linen, hemp) take natural dyes the best. The colors will fade over time unless pre-treated with a mordant or soy-binder solution. We all skipped this step. But you WILL want to scour your fabrics/garments just before dying. This is a pre-wash that removes oils. You'll want the fabric to be wet when you add them to the dye bath (see step 4 for reminder).
Step 2: Gather your dye stuff. For the onion bath, you'll want to save the dry golden skins of yellow onions. I'd been saving up for about six months, but I also "foraged" more from my local grocery store's onion bin. This bath makes a yellow/golden fabric dye.
For the loquat bath, you'll want to locate a loquat tree and gather leaves, branches, buds. This tree is also called japanese plum or disbelief fruit tree by locals. Roughly cut the harvested branches/leaves to release the colorful chemicals. I crammed as much as I could into my stock pot (with room for water and stirring). This bath makes a reddish pink fabric dye.
Step 3: The day before you plan to dye, add the dye stuff to a large stock pot with plenty of water. I made my onion bath in a kitchen pot that I will use for cooking again (because it's essentially food). Loquat seeds release cyanide so I used extra precautions and purchased a craft-only stock pot (Granite Ware 12qt Stock Pot) for the loquat dye bath. Bring your water and dye stuff to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 30-60 minutes.
The more the dye is heated and then let to sit and reheated, the stronger the pigment will become.
Step 4: Reheat on dye day! An hour before we dyed our fabric I brought the pots to a boil and simmered again for about 45 minutes. This is a good time to also scour your fabrics/garments just before dying. This is a quick wash in the washer machine that removes oils. You'll want the fabric to be wet when you add them to the dye bath.
Step 5: Dye! You can add your fabric directly to your stovetop dye pots, or you can strain and pour the dye bath into 5 gallon buckets (this method works better for a crowd).
Either way, use some metal tongs for adding, swirling and retrieving the cloth.
We left our garments in the dye bath for a 2-3 hour soak. For best results, you'll want to maintain a low cloth to dye bath ratio, but we were really maximizing the opportunity and put in as much cloth as possible! I even added more cloth for a round two after the first batch was done.
Step 6: Rinse & Wash. After removing garments from the dye bath, we hung them to dry, letting the dye sit on the fiber for a little bit longer. The next day, I got around to rinsing and washing my cloth.
For more tips, check out these links:
https://www.cedardelldesigns.com/blog-posts/dyeing-with-onion-skins
https://www.annacarolynmeier.com/post/loquat-dye
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