Almost Done! Natural Dyeing

Walnuts

Let these simmer until you reach a pretty dark concentrate

I ended up boiling these down three times to make the ratio of my concentrate to my water more even. It all depends on how dark of a brown you're trying to reach. Walnut hulls are pretty potent, so you can keep boiling them down. I never reached a time where my water was fading...if that makes any sense.

Soak your fabric first (just to dampen) and then drop into the dye bath. 

I let these simmer for about three hours

Results:

1. No mordant-Cotton

2. Alum- Organic Dobby

3. Alum- Organic Dobby

 All simmered for three hours

1 & 2 left to cool in dye bath overnight

Madder Root

Even though I already treated my fabric with an alum mordant, I went ahead and put some more alum directly into my bath for this one ('bout three heaping Tbs) Why? I read some where that using additives will produce colors that lean on the red side and others will lean on the orange side. 

 I made roughly three concentrates for my dye bath.

It was looking really orange, so I stripped most of the roots in the middle of the process because the outer part of the root is what really gives off the yellowish/orangish color. The inside is what I really wanted for red.

Boiled it down again.

I was really thinking I was going to end up with an orange or peach. (A tutorial told me that most madder root dye baths end up orange. So it's still pretty touchy)

Results:

 1. Alum-Soy Organic Cotton Jersey 

2. Alum-Recycled Twill

Both simmered for about four hours. 

What you should know about Madder Root:

-It is Very heat sensitive. Madder should never really be brought to a rapid boil. In Fact... it should be brought to a simmer over the course of two hours...yea, go ahead and find something else to do.

-Should never really go past 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

-Is a good candidate for solar or cool dyeing.

-The roots should be rinsed first to remove the yellows and oranges from the outer part of the root that usually turn your bath orange.

-After that, let soak, rink and chop up or better yet, blend (in a blender you don't use for food, of course)

....yep I think that about sums it up as far as my knowledge... of course there's more to know, so you should defiantly research some more before doing this, because I obviously didn't do this perfectly.