Taking a little time to work more closely with tannins has been incredibly interesting! This week’s tannin exploration focuses on Sumac. Sumac is from the Rhus genus and its scientific name is Rhus coriaria. It’s native to southern Europe and western Asia where it is commonly known as Tanner’s Sumac or Sicilian Sumac. We are fortunate to have number of North American native sumac including Rhus glaubra, sometimes called Smooth Sumac, and Rhus typhina or Staghorn Sumac, known for its dramatic bright red berry clusters. The staghorn berries were used by indigenous people as a tea, and the bark ..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 Arounna to learn about how she got started with her husband and how she grew her amazing community to what it is today. Can you tell us your origin story? How did Bookhou begin? I finished art school with a background in sculpture and ceramics and I started doing some teaching at ... Read more The post Sunday Visit: Arounna Khounnoraj ..read more

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