Natural Dyeing with Yellow Onion Skins🧅✨

Onion skins are sustainable, easy to source, & capable of creating a range of colors from bright, sunny yellow to rich gold on mordanted fabric.

The crispy outer skins of yellow onions contain high levels of tannins as well as over 25 flavonoids. Tannins protect plants from uv damage and those protective properties transfer onto naturally dyed fabric - helping tannin rich dyes to be more lightfast. 🌞

Creating dye with onion skins is much like making an onion skin tea. Simply cover the skins with water and heat on med-low for around an hour or until you’re satisfied with the dye color. The skins can then be removed before the fabric goes into the dye. Remember that the fabric will be 2-3 shades lighter after being rinsed and dried so be sure to let it soak in the dye on a low heat until the color looks a little darker or deeper than you’d like. 🌼🧡

✨✨I recently shared my favorite mordanting recipe on my blog - Link is in my bio✨✨

Learn the entire natural dye process in my online, self-paced course: Natural Dye: Immersion Dyeing. Now 25% off with code NEWFRIEND 🌞

#fyp #naturaldye #ecodye #plantdye #naturalliving #sustainablefashion

Coreopsis flowers on organic cotton socks 🌼 #plantdye #flowers #naturevibes

Flower magic 💫 #naturaldye #plantdye #fllowerchild #ecopritning #hapazome

Tis the season to stock up on cozy socks for the months ahead 🐿🍂🌼 gifted a pair of eco printed socks to my brother last year & I finally got around to making myself a pair!🌞 These socks were pretreated with mordants before being rolled with flowers and steamed. The mordants connect the dye to the fabric and allow the natural color to last longer and withstand exposure to sunlight and washing. 🌞💦 #nature #sustainablefashion #naturaldyeing #plantlady

👻 Creating a ghostly Halloween wall hanging with a touch of nature’s chemistry and a hint of history! 🍂🖤 Oak gall ink has been used for centuries by artists and scribes, dating back to the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This ink is made by combining oak galls (rich in tannins), gum arabic, and iron sulfate – and here’s where the chemistry magic happens! Tannins, which are natural polyphenols, have a strong affinity for metals. When tannins meet iron ions (Fe²⁺) from iron sulfate, they bind together in a process called complexation, creating a dark, stable pigment called ferrous tannate. This pigment resists fading and shifts the ink’s color toward the deep black we recognize today, thanks to a bathochromic shift, the ink’s color shifts towards longer wavelengths, absorbing light in a way that turns it deep black. The iron ions alter the dye molecule’s electronic structure, so what we see is a rich, dark hue – perfect for our ghostly friend! 🖋️👻 I painted blushy cheeks with madder root watercolor, a warm color extracted from the roots of the Rubia tinctorum plant. I the pounded sulfur cosmos, greenthread, and dianthus onto the head, creating a crown straight from nature. 👑🌸🌿 #nturaldye #naturecrafts #halloweendecor

Bundle Dyeing with Natural Dyes ✨ This bundle dye was first dyed with indigo then mordanted before being dyed with madder to create a lavender base color. 💜 Coreopsis, cosmos, marigolds, & black knight scabiosa were sprinkled onto the fabric before rolling, bundling with bands, & steaming to transfer the plants’ color onto the cloth. ✨ #prettyflowers #naturaldye #creatorsearchinsights

🦋🌿✨ #austintx #butterfly #garden

This linen top was mordanted with homemade aluminum acetate before being dyed with coreopsis, cosmos, & Mexican mint marigold. 🌿 ✨✨Mordanting is an essential step that ensures that the natural dyes within plants can create strong bonds with fiber. Working with the proper mordants will help prints be clearer and stronger.✨✨ I often include iron in my mordanting process for its incredible capability to help prints look more saturated and crisp but it also deepens and shifts color. I chose to leave it out of the mordant for this top so the prints would remain bright & cheerful. 🌈🦋 Let’s wear our flowers together! 🫶🏼 #naturaldye #ecoprint #plantladylife

Organic cotton socks eco printed euth dried, pressed flowers 🌼🌿 Drop any natural dye questions below 👇🏼 #naturaldye #ecoprint #granolagirlaesthetic

👉🏼Comment FLOWER & I’ll send you a list of my Favorite flowers for botanical printing 🌼✨ Eco printing is a natural dye method that uses pressure and heat to directly transfer the image of a plant onto a substrate. 🌿 The plants are arranged on barriers & fabric that has been pretreated with mineral salt mordants. The fabric and plants then rolled, bundled, and steamed together to transfer the dye from within the plants to the fabric. If you have any questions about natural dyeing, I’d love to hear them below! 🌷#naturaldye #plants #ecoprinting #nature

👉🏼✨ Comment BUNDLE & I’ll send you a ✨free✨ bundle dyeing tutorial! 🦋 Bundle dyeing is an easy technique that yields beautiful results. ✨ If you’re new to natural dyeing, food waste dyes, like onion skins, are a budget friendly, low pressure way to begin experimenting. I worked with red & yellow onion skins for this project. 🧅💕 Some of the best (most colorfast) food waste dyes include avocado pits & skins 💗, pomegranate peel☀️🌿, onion skins🧡, & carrot tops. 🥕 When working with natural dyes, the fabric must be pretreated with either mineral salts or a protein binder. Proper preparation allows the dyes to become insolubly bound with the fiber, essentially fixing them into the fabric. This onesie was pretreated with soy milk before being dyed. This step is vital for color uptake and longevity. If you’d like to learn how to create long lasting natural colors, I share multiple mordanting techniques in my online courses.🌈 Onion skins typically create pinks and yellow on soy treated fabric and greens and yellows on mineral salt mordanted fabric. ✨ Are you saving your onion skins for future dye projects? 🌞 #naturaldye #crafts #plantdye #granolagirl #natureathome

Love how the acid in these thelesperma flowers made little sparkle spots on this eco print. 🌼 I have a youtube tutorial where I share exactly how to eco print with natural dyes & flowers. You can find the link in my bio. 🌿 #creatorsearchinsights #fyp #flowers #naturaldye

These prints were made with vitex and sumac leaves + coreopsis, Cosmo, & hibiscus flowers 🌞 The fabric is bamboo silk that was naturally dyed with avocado pits for the prettiest earthy pinks 🌷🥑 Natural dye lesrning resources are linked in my bio if youd like tonleaen more. 🌸 #creatorsearchinsights #fyp #flowers #naturaldye