At Botanical Colors we believe that every day is Earth Day. To celebrate in a meaningful way, we are excited to launch a new indigo collaboration with Vibrant Valley Farm: meet Vibrant Valley Blue Indigo Paste.  After seven years of intensive growing, harvesting and fine-tuning their extraction processes, Vibrant Valley Farm is thrilled to share their indigo pigment paste with the world. It is an exceptional product and is perfect for artisans, dyers, and makers alike. Paste means that the product combines easily in a classic 1-2-3 vat and yields beautiful, brilliant blue shades. We ..read more

Botanical Colors is thrilled to present an excursion to Tangier, Morocco this August: EXPERIENCING THE COLORS OF TANGIER workshop and retreat with Yto Barrada & Cara Piazza. Each day will be a mix of creative textile exploration and soaking up the sights and highlights of Tangier. We have gathered short profiles of some of the exciting places we are going to visit during our time in this magical city as well as places that invite exploration and personal discovery. Tangier is located on the Strait of Gibraltar and sits at the crossroads of Africa and Europe, where the Mediterranean Se ..read more

Black Walnut Juglans nigra is one of our most interesting tannins and it’s a color that’s native to the North American continent. The entire tree contains color but it is in the green hulls that we find a strong concentration of dark tannins yield light beige to golden brown on cellulose. On wool, black walnut really shines and makes a rich brown shade. Walnut Hull Powder from black walnut (Juglans nigra) is a common source of brown dye throughout North America. The fleshy hulls are full of tannin, juglone and other pigments and are the primary source of the dye. ... Read more The post Mordant ..read more

Every Sunday, Botanical Colors sits down for an interview with a luminary in the natural dye, textile and art world. Grab a cup of tea and settle in to learning about someone you never knew! Catch up on all our Sunday Visits here. This week we sit down with force of nature Kara Gilbert of Vibrant Valley Farm. Vibrant Valley Farm works diligently to care for this earth in everything they do. They farm vegetables, flowers and dye plants and in each step of the process, honor sustainable practices to create healthier communities locally and globally in our outreach, education and daily ..read more

Today in our tannin series we move on to Quebracho Moreno. Quebracho (Schinopsis balansae and Schinopsis lorentzii) is an evergreen tree that grows wild in South America. It grows mainly in Argentina and Paraguay in dense sub-tropical forests which also include a variety of other trees and vegetation. The name is due to its hardness, and comes from two Spanish words, quebrar and hacha, meaning “axe breaker”. In fact, quebracho has been used locally for posts, telegraph poles, bridge timbers, railway ties, paving blocks and for any construction where great dur ..read more

Questions about Shibori & Mordanting You Asked: My question is, would it be a good or less good idea to do the shibori stitching after scouring, but before mordanting the fabric? If the idea is to mordant so that the dye bonds to the fabric, it seems to make sense to stitch before mordanting, thus ensuring the resist that the stitching is meant to achieve? Kathy Answered: If you want to use a mordant dye for shibori, then stitch first and mordant after the stitching is pulled and tightened.  You also want to soak the fabric in lukewarm water for ... Read more The post You Ask, Kathy A ..read more

We have a new type of Mordant Monday for you today where we dive into the world of Tannins! We want to show you how to use our tannins to mordant, either in combination with aluminum sulfate, to get rich long lasting and substantive color, or to use as a base for color mixing. We will explore our tannins over the next few weeks.  In the photo pictured above we dyed our hemp towel irregulars first in an Indigo Henna Vat. We then used a 15% WOF bath of our osage saw dust to get this beautiful hue. Osage orange ... Read more The post Mordant Monday: Tannins and Teal, Osage Edition appeared f ..read more

Every Sunday, Botanical Colors sits down for an interview with a luminary in the natural dye, textile and art world. Grab a cup of tea and settle in to learning about someone you never knew! Catch up on all our Sunday Visits here. This week’s Sunday Visit we catch up with Kenya Miles, to have a deep and meaningful conversation around what the color blue means. How Blue Light Junction came to be and how through community and craft we can hold space for each other to learn to learn. We had a wonderful phone interview that honestly left me ... Read more The post Sunday Visit: Some Kind Of Blue wi ..read more

YOU ASKED: Is it reliable to use rainwater? What are the consequences (pros and cons) of doing that for a dyebath? What should I be aware of (more acidity perhaps?)? KATHY ANSWERED: Rainwater is usually softer and more acidic than groundwater, so you could see a difference between colors dyed with well or groundwater and those dyed in rainwater. Some dyes such as cochineal and lac benefit from softer or demineralized water and rain water could be useful in that situation. I used to struggle to achieve bright cochineal pink shades when I lived in an area where our water ... Read more The post Y ..read more

We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email questions@botanicalcolors.com YOU ASKED: I’m trying to make my natural dye practice completely plant-based, which also includes my mordant. I’ve used sumac and different nuts in the fall, tea and avocado pits, but do you sell a plant-based mordant? I still want to get great color and not all plant-based “mordants” are getting me to where I want to be. KATHY ANSWERED: We do! Symplocos is an exciting alternative that will give you the mordanting power as your base. We are ..read more