I have been playing around with natural dyes for the last few summers. It has been a lot of fun, but I have been focusing on plants that were already growing around me and the colour palette has been… very neutral. Not that they aren’t nice shades, but I have been mainly getting tans and browns, with the only variation being how yellow a shade is.
I wanted to try rose petals this time in hopes of getting a light pink. I have heard that rose might be a fugitive dye, so my colour may not last, but I wanted to try it anyways. I have two jars of dried rose petals that I harvested last year. I am going to try using two different mordants to see if I get different shades out of the rose petals. For the first batch I am just trying vinegar, and I will use alum next time.
To start with, I selected something from my dying basket. (While I am still learning, I am using a collection of old white cotton t-shirts that I have pre-washed. The ones that look nice will end up in a future sewing project. The ones that don’t will have taken a short detour before becoming rags.) This means that I don’t have to start with selecting and laundering my fabric.
For me the first step was to extract the dye out of the rose petals. I put them in my dye pot and brought the water to a simmer.
I can’t say that I was excited about the murky colour that came out of them… maybe the heat was on too high? Or maybe I should try fresh petals next time? This is looking kind of muddy again…
Oh well, the show must go on! I strained out the petals and put the dye back on the stove. I pretreated my fabric and added it to the dye pot.
(I am just going to take a moment to remind you that it is best to have a dedicated pot for dying in. while everything I am using today is food safe, not all natural dyes or mordants are. Better safe than sorry!)
I let the fabric simmer of a low heat for awhile. Then I turned off the heat and let the fabric sit overnight. I did stir it a few times because my dye pot is quite small and not all of the fabric was submerged.
In the morning I rinsed it out until the water ran clear, and then hung it to dry.
The results were… lackluster. I can’t say I was overly impressed. Not only are we still firmly in beige territory, but it was streaky as well. Now I am questioning if I even want to bother with another try?
What do you think? Fresh rose petals? Alum? Save my time for a more reliable dye plant? Let me know what sort of dying project you want to see!
Want more Hodgepodge Homesteading? Here’s where else you can find us!
On Instagram: @hodgepodgehomesteading
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092368241618
On Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/hodgepodgehomesteading/