Introduction

Hello!  Welcome to my little experiment in natural dyes.  My name is Jay and I'm currently a student at Michigan State studying Apparel and Textile Design as well as Horticulture.  My specific interest is eco-friendly textiles and textile fibers, ie. hemp, organic cotton, flax, and sustainable wool and silk.   I am an avid sewist as well as a textile artist.

This blog is part of an independent study I'm working on.  The goal is to find (or grow) several types of plant matter and extract the natural dyes from them.  The blog will serve as documentation plus I will be putting together a physical book of the dyed materials.

When my instructor mentioned natural dyes as a great topic for an independent study, I jumped at the chance.  Because, well, I LOVE gardening and I LOVE dyeing.  This gave me the opportunity to do both.  I keep a fairly large urban vegetable garden (32' x 32') in my front yard.  This year I set aside a small bed dedicated to dye plants. 

From seed we planted:

• Japanese Indigo (Persicaria tinctorium)
• Dyers Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria)
• French marigolds
• Bulls Blood Beets
• Hopi Red Amaranth
• Hopi Dye Sunflowers
• Fennel

Other possible dye plants already growing in my garden include

• Purple basil
• Rhubarb
• Hollyhocks
• Hibiscus

Other possible dye sources

• onion skins
• walnuts
• birch bark (gathered from felled birch trees) 

Some gratuitous garden pics :)

Front Yard Garden

Dye bed prepped and ready to plant 6/10/12 (beside pink flowers)

Dye plants ready to harvest!  8/06/12