The natural beauty of home dyeing

Since weaving textiles became common, natural dyes have been used to create colourful garments. People in medieval times would not have worn the dull browns we might imagine, but a range of subtle green, brown, yellow and orange, producing the colours from foraged plants, berries, leaves and bark. At this time in history, most woven fabrics were woollen or linen, and it is only later that cottons and silks became available. The process for dyeing onto animal fibres is different from dyeing on plant fibres, and trial and error would have taught what worked best.

Getting your dyes to fix

We now use mineral salt fixatives for our natural dyes. Most