Blog — natural dyes

Let’s talk about lac (ครั่ง)!

Today we’re going to go over the steps we take at our studio when using raw stick-lac (Kerria lacca) straight from the jungle to color our silk in a range of natural shades. When using lac in this way we normally go for a deep plum purple color but it’s easy to adjust the steps and get many other shades as well, like coral-orange and pinks. After about a year of playing around with stick-lac as a dye I feel I’ve developed a process that works well for me so I want to share it with you. Hopefully this will be of particular use to other natural dyers out there, and if you’re not a dyer but maybe an enthusiast or just like natural colors then like us you might find the process fascinating and somewhat akin to alchemy.

But first - what is lac anyway?

Lac is a tiny parasitic insect that lives on the branches of particular tree species and secretes resinous tubes in which it lives. This resin is most commonly processed into shellac which is dissolved in alcohol to make sealants, primers and varnishes. It continues to be the choice of sealing wax used by India Post today. The dye itself actually comes from the insects that remain in the resin housing after dying from exposure to sunlight. It is one of the most ancient dyes known to humans.

Lac in particular is a dye I’ve found to be particularly sensitive to water quality and contamination. My biggest hurdle when working with it has been trying to stop it from separating and coagulating into a pigment form. I’ve read somewhere that the word “lake” (referring to a pigment lake - which is liquid dye that has been precipitated into solid pigment most commonly used for making paintings in the past) derives its name from lac due to how easily it was for this dye to separate and become a pigment. In fact it was one of the first dyes to be precipitated in this way.

While pigment lakes certainly have their uses what I want to show you today is something different - we will look at how to extract color out of raw stick-lac, simmer it down to a very concentrated consistency, use that concentrate to paint directly onto fabric (with an option of using pH modifiers) and finally steam set the dye.

While this method is not always superior when using lac and other natural dyes it does have some distinct advantages over the more traditional full-submersion dyeing process carried out in a dye bath:

• Minimized water usage
• Increased depth of shade
• Even dye uptake
• Reduced dye wastage
• Large degree of control allowing for greater creative expression
• No need for large dedicated dyeing vessel
• Easy to add additional shades
• Speed
• Convenience

Minimized water usage

Because we will not be doing full-submersion dyeing this means that the amount of water which we use is greatly reduced. This is particularly important with lac because from my experience the water has to be as clean as possible and not everyone has ample access to lots of filtered/rain water. We only need a few liters of clean water for this method since we will be simmering it down into a concentrate for direct painting later.

Increased depth of shade

By painting the concentrate directly onto the fabric we force as much dye as possible into the fibers which is much more difficult to do when working with a dye bath. To get the same deep rich color in a dye bath we would have to increase the quantity of dye material used considerably.

Even dye uptake

To get a nice even spread of color across a fabric when doing full-submersion dyeing with natural dyes you either have to use a leveling agent (a chemical that helps to evenly distribute the dye), add more water to ensure that the fabric can float freely in the dye pot or nurse over it like a watchful mother stirring the fabric at regular intervals. With direct painting there’s none of that - just stretch out the cloth, grab a big brush and paint layers until everything looks even.

Reduced dye wastage

With full-submersion dyeing there’s always going to be leftover dye that doesn’t get taken up by the fiber which has to be poured down the drain (or into your flower bed). This is minimised when using a direct painting method.

Larger degree of control

By applying the dye directly to fabric with a brush there are suddenly many new possibilities which aren’t available in the same way when dyeing in a dye pot. You can do all sorts of crazy stuff with brushstrokes, using different colors that overlap, sprinkling salt to create mottled effects or using alcohol/water for gradation effects, etc. It’s also possible to use gutta paste or katazome paste to draw designs and paint within the lines (you would want to treat the fabric with something like raw soy milk first to prevent unwanted color spread in that case and also thicken your dye).

No need for large dedicated dyeing vessel

Especially useful if you’re doing a long piece. Not everyone can invest in a massive pot that sits in the corner 99% of the time eyeing you judgmentally for only using it once a month (next to the sturdy short metal stove which will need to support it). With this method the only large pot you will need is for the steaming step at the end (or no pot at all if you’ve purchased a fabric steamer) and since there is no dyestuff or mordant coming in direct contact with the surface of the pot you can safely use whatever is in the kitchen.

Easy to add additional shades

This one is great. So many times I’ve taken something out of the dye bath, washed and dried it only to discover the color is not what I want. I could put it back in the dye bath but most of the color is exhausted so I would need to boil up a new batch. With direct painting what you see is what you (generally) get. Just paint a layer and let it dry. Don’t like how it looks? Add another one and keep going until you reach your happy place.

Speed - pretty fast (once you’ve made your concentrate)

With a dye pot you often have to leave textiles soaking in the liquid overnight for maximum color. With direct painting on the other hand as long as you do a good job steaming the fabric you can be done in a matter of hours.

Convenience

It’s incredibly handy to have a jar of natural dye concentrate sitting in the fridge ready to be taken out and used for a project. Rather than spending half a day each time I need to extract color in a dye pot when I want to dye something instead I can do it once and keep the concentrate for later. Easy!

Before we get into the process I should add a little disclaimer - none of this is scientifically accurate/proven/recommended. This is simply the way which I found works best for me after a year of boiling many many failed lac batches and pouring most of them down the drain. Also - while these steps are specific to lac this method can also be used with any other dyestuff.

Let’s go.

1. Grinding
2. Soaking
3. Filtering
4. Simmering
5. Filtering
6. Preparing fabric
7. Painting
8. Steaming

1: Grinding

The first thing you will want to do with your raw stick-lac is to separate the dye from all the impurities (resin, pieces of branches, etc) by grinding and soaking it in water. Marjo Moeyes in her wonderful book “Natural Dyeing in Thailand” provides instructions for grinding the lac in a mortar and pestle with a small amount of boiling water that gets strained and changed periodically until no more dye comes out. I’ve tried this many times. It works but I somehow always manage to spill everything, splatter the walls or both until the studio looks like a crime scene and the neighbors politely avoid eye contact with me until my hands are no longer crimson red. Also, the boiling water heats up the resin turning everything into a sticky mess.

Instead I’ve found that putting the dry material for about 15-20 seconds in a spice blender is a fantastic 21st century alternative. Make sure the container is of high quality as the material really flies around inside at high speed and the whole process is extremely noisy. I wouldn’t blend longer than 20 seconds for two reasons: the first is that blending it for too long creates ultra-fine particles which stubbornly pass through the filtering cloth and the second is that there is a large amount of resin in the material which could heat up causing your blades to start gumming up.

A slightly crumbly consistency of rough sand is perfectly fine.

For my example I will be dyeing one lightweight 2 meter long silk scarf a deep plum purple color and 70 grams of stick-lac gives me enough dye to do that, with a little leftover for future projects.

2: Soaking

The dye is water soluble and starts coming out of the material effortlessly. All it needs is one night of soaking in some clean water (either rainwater or reverse-osmosis). In my experience 12 hours works well but leaving it for too long (48 hours) can start causing separation problems.

 For my extract I will be soaking the 70 grams of lac in about 7 liters of water.

3: Filtering

After about 12 hours of soaking the liquid is strained through a fine muslin cloth to remove the resin and branches and we are left with a vibrant blood-red liquid.

To make sure my color is as pure as possible I have individual filtering cloths for each type of dye I work with - beige for mangosteen, light pink for sappanwood, plum purple for lac and yellow for gourka tree bark

If you are extracting lac for standard full-submersion dyeing then at this point you can use the liquid as a standard dye bath by heating it up (no higher than 80°C/176°F) and putting in your mordanted fabric.

4: Simmering

To make the concentrated liquid extract we will need to evaporate out as much water as we can from the dye bath. I’ve found a wider pot works better for this than a deeper one. However, since the dye starts to lose its brilliance past higher temperatures we have to bring it to just before simmer point, turn down the heat to low and keep it there for several hours. The duration depends on how much soaking water you start with and how concentrated you want your final product to be. There’s a trade-off to be made here - too little water and you risk not extracting the maximum amount of dye from the raw material during the soaking stage. Too much water and you will likely have to spend the entire day simmering it down to a concentrated point.

I find that simmering my 7 liters of liquid down to about 300 ml of concentrate gives me enough concentrate to paint 3-4 layers on my silk scarf for a deep color. To gently evaporate excess water from 7 liters to 300 ml usually takes me 6-8 hours of low simmering.

After several hours when there’s only about half an inch of liquid or so left in the pot some special care needs to be taken to avoid burning it. At this point I usually grab the pot and swirl the liquid around in a circular motion for about 20 minutes until the excess water evaporates and the consistency is similar to light syrup. The point when some thickening just barely starts to occur is when I turn off the heat.

5: Filtering (again)

To make sure that the concentrate is as clean as possible I run it through a filtering cloth for a second time. If something went wrong during extraction (unclean water, soaking time too long or temperature too high) then the pigment can coagulate and clog the filtering cloth. The only thing to do then is collect it, dry it, treat is as a pigment for watercolor or wall plaster coloring matter and start again.

If everything went right and the stars are favorably aligned then the resulting liquid should be a very deep velvety red color and drip cleanly through the filter. Here my 7 liters simmered down to just over 300 ml.

At this point the container can be wrapped tightly with plastic wrap and kept in the fridge. I’ve kept some concentrates like this for 3-4 weeks and there was no noticeable degradation in color quality.

6: Preparing fabric

For painting on fabric with natural dyes the material needs to be pre-mordanted (alum or iron is recommended for low toxicity). For silk we use potassium aluminium sulfate together with cream of tartar dissolved in water (20% and 6% weight of fiber respectively) at 80°C/176°F for an hour and left to soak overnight.

Before painting on the concentrate the material needs to be stretched out and slightly dampened - if it’s dry the dye won’t absorb evenly, if it’s too wet the dye will drip off. To stretch it out there are many ways, the most proper and professional of which would be to use Japanese “shinshi” - thin flexible sticks with sharp pins on the ends. One particularly creative way that I’ve seen is to make a frame using blue PVC pipes of a dimension that is about 10 cm larger than your work piece on all sides and stretch out the fabric in the middle by use of rubber bands and safety pins. This is a great and inexpensive option and highly recommended if the paint work will involve delicate shapes and curves as it keeps the fabric stable and perfectly horizontal. The frame can be made out of smaller modular pieces to accommodate fabric of varying sizes.

For our piece because all we want is a solid color (we will be using shibori techniques and over-dyeing with indigo later on) the fabric is simply stretched between a fence and a drying rack using metal clips. It’s very primitive but gets the job done. Also - it is advisable that the space you’re working in is shaded from direct sunlight.

When the fabric is prepared it’s time to paint!

7: Painting

Short hair brushes seem to work far better than synthetic bristle brushes for this. Also, for solid color wider brushes are preferable. Lightly dip your brush in concentrate and start laying down the color using steady even strokes. If excess dye pools up in the middle of the fabric try and redistribute it out towards the rest of the fabric.

Once a layer is applied I usually wait until the fabric is just slightly damp again before putting on the next layer. The silk I’m working with is thin enough for the dye to penetrate through to the back but if your fabric is thicker you will need to flip it and paint both sides.

One of the great things about this technique is that you can very quickly get a good idea of what the final color is going to be and adjust the process accordingly. In my case after the first layer I thought the color was leaning too much towards a pink with coral-orange undertones so I decided to adjust my next layer using an alkali. This is something you can do with most natural dyes - they have a bit of a hue spectrum which you can shift by slightly changing the pH during the dyeing process. In the case of lac pushing the pH towards acidity will produce warmer orange coral tones, while adding an alkali will bring out pinks and purples more. There are many types of pH modifiers used in natural dyeing to achieve this shift and what you use will depend on how far you want the shift to go. Cream of tartar will push acidity a little bit, but not as much as adding straight vinegar. Chalk can push alkalinity, but not as much as slaked lime or soda ash.

Since the lac extract is slightly acidic by itself it naturally tends to move toward the orange-coral spectrum. If that’s the color you want you can use it as it is without any pH adjustments and apply one layer for a light shade, or go over multiple times for a deeper color. Always do a small sample first just in case before painting a larger piece. For my scarf I wanted the color to be plum-purple with an undertone of electric pink so I added a pinch of soda ash to the concentrate. Once the pH is modified the color change of the dye liquid is immediate.

Before adding alkali

After adding alkali

With my newly adjusted lac I painted on another 2 layers, making sure to give the fabric enough time to dry a little bit and soak up the color between each application. If you’re like me and want to hurry things along you can point a fan at the work to help it dry quicker.

After the last layer the fabric is dried completely and prepared for the final step.

Important note - if you’re working with shapes and outlines (like painting within katazome rice paste resist or gutta lines) then the dye needs to be thickened to prevent it from running. A pinch of guar gum stirred into the dye is good for this (make sure the liquid isn’t cool - the gum won’t dissolve properly) but try not to use too much as I’ve found it can act as a color blocker when in excess. I believe there are also ways to pre-treat the fabric to avoid dye running but the only way I know (soaking in fresh raw soy milk) makes the fabric stiff. If anyone knows a better way please let us know in the comments below.

8: Steaming

To make the dye permanent it has to be heat-set. Normally this heat application would happen in a hot dye bath but with silk painting it’s necessary to use steam. There are many hobby-size fabric steamers available for sale, both stove-top and electric. In Thailand finding such devices is a bit of a challenge so we made our own (very basic) steamer using a pot with the largest diameter available. The pot only needs to be a little wider than your fabric so if your work is narrow enough you can use a large pot from your kitchen or adjust the width of your work to accommodate your largest vessel.

The basics of a fabric steaming is that the fabric must be suspended in the air and exposed to steam in such a way that also avoids moisture dripping onto the fabric. For our device all that is needed are some ropes suspended securely from the rim so that the work can sit somewhere in the mid-section of the pot (high enough to avoid any contact from the water and low enough to leave space between itself and the lid) without touching the sides of the pot.

To prepare the fabric for steaming in our fancy homemade contraption I roll it sandwiched between layers of newspaper onto a permeable core of rolled up rigid chicken wire-type material and then tightly wrap the entire package in multiple layers of plastic wrap. The plastic wrap is there to make sure no water droplets find their way in - they will leave marks if they do (it’s a good idea to cover the sides of the cylinder also). I then suspend the rolled up fabric in the steaming pot.

The pot opening is covered with a towel to absorb excess moisture and closed with a lid which is weighted down with something heavy. This helps keep too much steam from escaping and also provides something to secure the towel ends with and keep them away from the stove flames.

A proper fabric steamer is less hassle than this and will usually come with a perforated stainless steel core around which you can wrap your fabric and suspend it neatly from the top of the container. It should also come installed with a temperature gauge which is important for silk steaming as you do not want to take the temperature too far past 80°C/176°F. For our gauge we drilled a hole through the lid and put a turkey thermometer held in place with heat-resistant silicone. It works but in hindsight I would recommend going to the BBQ section of a Home Depot and getting one of those thermometers with a screw thread and wing nut to hold it in place. If you’re doing a small project and don’t want to ruin your lid it’s possible to stick a turkey thermometer in between the lid and the pot if it can stay there securely. Otherwise if the heat is just kept on very low then everything should be fine.

When using either the homemade or purchased steamer device care should be taken when rolling the fabric to avoid any wrinkles as those could get steam-set along with the color. If you end up with wrinkles you can put your finished piece in a hot water bath to get them out (this has always worked with my silks).

Once the piece is rolled neatly, plastic wrapped and suspended inside the closed pot the heat is switched on and carefully monitored. Ideally I aim to steam silk for about 3 hours at 80°C/176°F. This gives the steam enough time to penetrate the multiple layers of folds and fix the color to the fabric. After 3 hours I turn off the heat, let everything cool down a little bit, remove the work from the pot and unwrap it.

Any unfixed dye then needs to be washed off. After 4-5 changes of water the excess is gone and the color usually stops running. We finally have our plum-purple-pink silk scarf naturally dyed with lac extract!

Since we used metal clips to stretch the fabric while painting and a funny steaming method there may be some small spots where the color isn’t perfect. This can be avoided by using a proper stretching frame and fabric steamer. However, since I use this method to create a solid background for creating shibori patterns and over-dyeing in indigo these little imperfections don’t matter so much because I can hide them under the blue.

As an example of final products that can be made with this technique - here is a photo of one of our past scarves from our Shibori Scarf Collection which was made using this exact method. The background was dyed in lac extract, then the motifs were stitched and wrapped to resist some of the color and finally the entire piece was dyed in indigo for a deep blue background.

That’s it! Hopefully you found this little guide interesting/inspirational. When reading it all in one go natural dye extraction and silk painting can seem like a daunting task but actually everyone can do something similar at home using the tools they already have available to them, especially if the work piece is smaller. Each plant can give us some kind of color so it’s up to us to experiment and see what sort of interesting shades we can create.

Happy painting!

From all the new designs that we worked on with C JEAN for our collaboration there is one pattern in particular from the collection that we are especially proud of. The overlapping wavering lines of blue, white and grey seen on the shirts (and C JEAN’s spectacular pants) are made using an adaptation of the Japanese “katazome” stencil dyeing technique. Although having dyed it made us feel pretty darn happy about ourselves it still remains a technique that we use sparingly in our work, the main reason being that at first glance it can be very difficult to distinguish this kind of fabric from one that is digitally printed. This makes it a particularly difficult kind of textile to hook people’s fascination with since it requires considerable time investment to understand what the textile is and how it was made. To help fellow textile enthusiasts understand what is going on with this design and to spread awareness of the method we are going to share a brief step-by-step process of how we achieved this pattern.

To start with a stencil is made by cutting a design from a waterproof material. Japanese dyers of olden times traditionally would use paper treated with fermented tannin-rich persimmon juice. Unfortunately these tend to come in a standard size and while this can work for smaller pieces or kimono-width fabric the large size of our project (a 2.5 meter long and 50 inch wide silk) meant we had to use something bigger. We ended up going for the largest thinnest sheet of flexible acrylic and laser cutting our design into it. It worked pretty well.

We steamed some rice flour and bran for several hours which we then blended to create a resist paste. This was applied through the stencil onto the tightly-stretched silk. The hardest part was connecting the lines by lifting the stencil, repositioning it further up the fabric and continuing to apply paste so that the pattern could repeat. This did not work so well. We ended up adding (more than) a few hints that it really was a handmade textile. Ah, c'est la vie.

The powder you see being brushed over the rice paste lines is sawdust and this helped to keep the paste from smearing the other sections of the textile once we put it in the indigo. After several dips in our indigo vat the paste is easily washed away and we can see the uniform blue and white lines running down nicely parallel to each other.

But this is only half of the puzzle because to achieve the illusory mirage-like effect that we wanted another set of lines had to go slightly across the first. We had seen a design like this already somewhere done with blue and white only, so for fun we thought of trying to add a third colour – grey/black. To do this we stretched the silk back out again, steamed new rice resist paste and started pasting on top of the previously dyed pattern – but this time at a slight angle. This angle is what created the intriguing intersections of lines that give us the desired pattern.

Once the paste dried we carefully applied a concentrated extract of myrobalan (Terminalia chebula) and light iron mordant with a brush. The tannins in the myrobalan reacted with the iron to give us a grey/black colour.

As I mentioned before without investing the time to understand the steps in this process it can be difficult for almost everyone today to distinguish a “katazome” stencil-dyed fabric from a digitally printed one. As we worked late into the night trying our best to shift the stencil a little this or that way to make the design repeat perfectly down the fabric we were forced to ask ourselves some hard questions: what was the point of getting covered in sticky rice goop at 2 in the morning and having to vacuum sawdust from the couch? Wouldn’t it just be easier, cheaper and quicker to print this design using modern technology?

There was a time when this technique represented the forefront of textile printing technology when extremely delicate graphic designs could only be made with these sorts of stencils. Staggeringly complex images with multiple layers of colour were created with sets of stencils that added layers upon layers of detail until a full picture emerged. Now we have the power at the tips of our fingers to have infinitely more beautiful designs with the push of a button almost instantaneously. Times have changed and sometimes I feel like there is no choice but to adapt and leverage the tools at hand. But then there was something about the “imperfections” of those lines that could be leveraged too. If we as craftsmen compete in the realm of visually precise repetitions and impeccably executed designs against machines then we will lose every time. But if we leverage those “imperfections” to accentuate the handcrafted nature of our arts and crafts we can start to turn the game to our favour. Overall this was a fun and challenging project from which many new ideas are emerging and already finding their way into our work.

Back in March this year we were invited by TCDC (Thailand Creative & Design Center) to join a collaborative project with a Taiwanese fashion designer C JEAN. The project was created by TCDC and Taiwan's SCCP (Songshan Cultural and Creative Park) and the aim is to build a relationship between designers from the two countries by exchanging ideas and collaborating together to develop works for a mini-exhibition in Bangkok in April.

Although the time given was extremely limited we felt that it would be a good opportunity for us to try new techniques and build a connection with C JEAN and SCCP. We also love Taiwan so much that we couldn't say no. Besides, the project theme 'Inspired by Nature' was also a perfect match with our work. 

To branch out from our usual shibori works we decided to try the eco-printing technique as we wanted to capture the colours and forms of our natural environment and transfer them onto the fabric. We started with pre-treating the silk with aluminium acetate. This helped the dye molecules from the plants stick to the fabric. Once the silk was ready we took a walk around our garden and collected various plant materials – leaves, flowers, stalks, petals, berries, etc, all of which were placed onto the silk. We also sprinkled some powdered dyestuff like sappanwood, safflower and mangosteen for an extra burst of colour. Then we rolled the fabric into a tight bundle which we secured with string, steamed for several hours and left to stand overnight. The next day after untying the bundle and washing the results could be seen. A fun and totally unpredictable technique that works really well on lustrous silk! 

C JEAN scanned our samples, digitally manipulated and printed onto silk to make some stunningly elegant garments. We’re really happy to see how the final pieces came out!

This collaboration continued when TCDC approached us again and asked if we were available to go to Taipei for a week in July to work towards another mini-exhibition at SCCP similar the one held in Bangkok. This time we had about a month and a half to work on the project.  After discussion with C JEAN we decided to take inspiration from the Op Art movement and the spectacular works of Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. 

Playing with the visual concept of kinetic energy and optical illusion effects we created the textiles with natural dyes and the use of shibori technique and stencil dyeing (katazome). These textiles were then featured in C JEAN’s designs for her sustainable fashion collection. She also made our outfits for the exhibition opening with the textiles we developed for this project!

The exhibit shows early development of our collaboration. Although we only had a short time to prepare for this exhibition, we are excited about future developments. The works are now being displayed in a mini exhibition in Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei until August 27th.

Ann’s elder brother runs a café in Bangkok and has been coming by to drop off batches of old coffee beans for our use in natural dyeing. He is quite passionate about his work and makes sure to only use the very best beans within 6 weeks of their roasting date. Any older than that and the quality of the flavors begin to degrade, at which point they come to us. The taste may not be so great anymore but the pigment is still there. 

To improve colour fastness on cellulose fabrics we first simmer the prepared cotton/linen in a tannin solution and leave it to soak overnight. The tannins (which we extract from simmering powdered Myrobalan nut) allow the mordant to “bite” into the fibre more effectively. On the second day the mordant (potassium aluminium sulphate or ferrous sulphate)is applied to the fabric either directly by brushing or by immersion in a pot and left overnight for better absorption. On the third day we extract the pigment by simmering ground coffee beans in a large pot and submerge the fabric, leaving it for yet another overnight soaking. It is a lengthy process but results in good colour. After dyeing in coffee if we want an overlaying pattern in another colour such as indigo on the same fabric we have to rework the fabric (take out previous stitching threads, wash, dry, plot new pattern, stitch and pull) and dye it again. While it takes time before we can see the final result it is also quite fun to experiment with new techniques and utilize an unexpected source of colour. Here are some of our latest coffee-dyeing experiments which will be patched together into an artwork for Hideaway café.

There has been a lot of work done this past month in preparation for the annual Chiang Mai NAP fair in December. Truth be told, we aren’t fully sure that we will be able to make it on time, but we do our best anyway. Precious moments at the indigo vat offer much-needed respite from the stresses of sorting out logistics necessary for getting the textiles out into the world.
 
Experiments in under-dyeing indigo with various natural dyes have continued. We used to get a nice steady supply of onion skins from Omu for golden-brown shades, but now that we live in Chiang Mai it has become more difficult to come by large quantities of the stuff. To stretch their use as far as we can we’ve decided to start extracting any leftover pigment from exhausted dye-baths. The process is known as making “lakes” and involves adding Potassium Alum to the dye-bath which binds to any remaining pigment molecules. When Soda Ash is added to this mixture the solution turns alkaline which changes the Alum to an insoluble state. It then slowly sinks to the bottom of the container together with the pigment. After being left overnight the top portion of liquid is siphoned off, fresh water is added to the accumulated pigment and the mixture is left to settle again. By repeating this process several times we end up with a very pure concentrated pigment free from any impurities. The pigment is ready for collection when the top portion of liquid is completely clear (this usually takes 3-4 days), at which stage it is siphoned off for the last time. The accumulated pigment is then filtered through coffee filters, dried and stored.

As you can see it really doesn’t yield much material. Normally we wouldn’t think twice about watering our garden with the exhausted dye-bath since the botanical materials we use are non-toxic. But there is a very good reason for going through all the trouble to save pigment in this form. It has potential for some interesting applications. When ground and mixed with a binder it can be used for painting on paper or as a wall plaster. For textile artists specifically there exist exciting possibilities to apply this pigment through stencils directly onto fabric to create finely detailed designs. This is something we would love to explore further, possibly early next year.

A Nui-Shibori/stitch-resist pattern that we have been working on has been adapted for some gorgeously light hand-spun handwoven cotton from Northern Thailand. The resulting fabric is a comfortably large (200cm long by 70cm wide) scarf that works well in our tropical Thai climate when loosely draped or can be worn snugly around the neck when in more temperate zones of the world. It was a monster of a job and I couldn’t figure out why until I did a calculation out of pure interest: 200 stitching threads make 30 turns each. There are a total of 6000 stitches that compress this fabric into the shape necessary for one scarf’s length of this pattern. When the threads were being pulled the fabric suddenly started collapsing into a spiral structure that looked like something found on the roof of a Gaudi apartment complex. We made a risky decision at this point to try under-dyeing the bundle in Myrobalan before giving it to the indigo to obtain some very gentle yellow-green undertones. I think it turned out pretty well and we are happy with the result. Hopefully we can make a few more in time for December’s event.

The indigo seeds we saw sprouting in July are already waist-high and pretty much take care of themselves now. Their resilience is incredible. What used to look like a patch of dry clay rock-hard desert nightmare wasteland is suddenly teeming with all sorts of life. Other plants have started growing under the protective shade of the indigo and colourful critters have taken up residence in the micro-sanctuary. It’s the crappiest soil on the plot by far and right now has the greatest diversity of life. We should have sown the seeds everywhere. The making and broadcasting of Masanobu Fukuoka-style clay indigo-seed-balls will have to wait until early next year.

Up until now all of our work was being done out of a spare kitchen and a single indigo vat in the back garden of Ann’s mother’s house in Bangkok. The decision to relocate to Chiang Mai was made long ago but it was only last week that we finished the bulk of our work in hectic Bangkok and finally made the move to the green North. With a lot of help on the way we ended up renting this lovely place for the purposes of setting up a proper studio and dyeing/weaving space.

The very first thing we did was plant indigo. The soil for the most part is bare bone dry dirt with heavy grey clay just two inches below it with a few somewhat-established fruit trees on the perimeter doing the best they can. In a way this is great because it gives us an excellent place to start experimenting with the soil-improvement capabilities of the local indigo (Indigofera Tinctoria) which just so happens to be in the Leguminosae family. With the presence of Rhizobium bacteria it should fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil (with the awesome byproduct of us being able to harvest our very own indigo pigment). By growing indigo amongst mixed perennial species, covering any exposed soil with carbon-rich plant material and sprawling groundcover plants, applying compost, worm castings and fermented bio liquids and using no-dig planting methods we hope to significantly improve the soil’s fertility, water-retention, and microbial activity which should result in a healthy, diverse and self-sustaining forest garden of abundance.

We started our experiments with a one-time ploughing of four short rows to break up some of the clay and incorporate worm castings and shredded coconut husk into the soil. We then scattered our Indigofera Tinctoria seeds, covered them with more shredded coconut and gave them a good watering. Three days later little sprouts were already poking their first sets of leaves through the mulch. They will have about a week of care and watering after which we must leave them to fend for themselves. Hopefully they will become established by then.

We also made some time to continue our explorations in under-dyeing indigo with coffee and myrobalan. The “butterfly” pattern we liked in our previous post was reproduced, this time at larger intervals and with the yellow being extracted from onion skins.

Indigo can impart some pretty stunning shades on cloth but after working with it for over a year it can feel a little tiring having to look at blue stuff all day. So a few weeks ago we started throwing another dyestuff into the mix: coffee! With its palette ranging from light creamy beige all the way to coal black it yields a great assortment of colours that pair well with indigo, slightly reminiscent of the indigo-kakishibu (fermented astringent persimmon) combination found in Japan.

In our previous work we physically rubbed the coffee grounds into the fabric (which incidentally promotes circulation in your palms and makes them super soft) to give a faded toned-down look to otherwise stark blues and whites. By rubbing we created a mechanical bond between the coffee pigment and the cloth, somewhat akin to how indigo pigment behaves by becoming trapped in weak electrostatic bonds within the fibres. Most natural dyes however do not work like this and require the cloth to be pretreated with a metallic salt which allows the dye to “bite” into the fibre once it is submerged in the dye solution. By applying various concentrations of thickened mordants (alum and ferrous sulphate) directly onto the cloth with a brush and then submerging it into a dye bath of coffee we were able to achieve more colours than by rubbing alone. The mordanting process also gives fastness and (relative) permanence to the colours.

The shades from the initial test pieces (#1,#2 and #3 from the left) were too light so we also began treating the fabric with tannic acid prior to mordanting and dyeing which intensified the colours. For #4 and #5 the tannic acid was extracted by simmering pomegranate skins (#4 had various mordant concentrations brushed on the flat fabric and #5 was stitched and compressed prior to the mordant application. Both pieces were then dyed in coffee). The pomegranate left an orange tint which we did not want for our final project so for test piece #6 we extracted tannin from myrobalan which gave us the colours we wanted. We then stitched, compressed and manipulated various fabrics before treating them. The following works are a four-step process: treatment with tannic acid extracted from myrobalan, application of ferrous sulphate/alum mordant, dyeing by simmering in coffee extract and a final over-dye of indigo (except the first piece which omits the indigo over-dye).

We especially liked the last piece and decided to reproduce it on a bigger scale. This pattern is most likely going to be something that we will incorporate into our future project.

These new colours are unexplored territory for us and the process of discovering how the myriad of variables can be tweaked is irresistibly exciting. It seems there are so many things that can be taken into account when working with natural dyes. Do you boil or simmer the dye material during extraction? For how long? What is the pot made of? Does the water have a neutral PH or any contaminants in it? Which metallic salt will you use as a mordant? At what concentration/combination ratio? Does the fabric receive the mordant before, during or after the dyeing? Are your hands free of contaminants that upon contact with the cloth may result in uneven dye penetration? Are there variations in the pigment based on which month of the year the plant material was collected or whether the harvest came from the North or South side of the trunk (as is the case for certain species of eucalyptus)? The smallest seemingly insignificant details can all affect the outcome and perhaps that’s one of the reasons why we are having such fun with natural dyeing: because the process itself feels like playful interaction with another entity that is very much alive, with its own mysteries, nuances and rules that we can learn with time, experience and luck to bend but never break.

There is a Bauhinia tree with beautiful purple flowers growing in the front yard of my house and everyday there are plenty of fallen petals on the ground.  I had been collecting these soft fragile purple petals and freezing them until I had enough to make a dye bath. I didn’t find any information about using this plant as a dye source so it was exciting to see whether or not it would work. Surprisingly, the water turned brown after soaking the flower petals for one night and the dyed results are shown below. I especially like the golden colour it produces when combined with alum mordant.

Next is red amaranth which I planted back in November. I collected some leaves to see whether I can make a dye bath out of them. The plant itself and colour of the leaves are beautiful. Although dye liquid extracted from soaking and boiling the leaves was reddish, the colours produced on cloth were soft browns and beiges. The plants are now shooting up flowers so I will start collecting them soon and see if I can also use them as a dye source.

Red cabbage is another interesting plant to experiment with. The dye liquid produced from soaking and boiling is blue and so the dye results range from dark greyish blue to lilac blue.

Before I went to Japan in 2013 and had the introductory experience of indigo dyeing and shibori, my works were often very colourful and vivacious so the thought of studying and focusing on one colour was quite strange and unlikely to me. No matter how much I tried to limit myself to just a couple of colours in the beginning of my weaving or designing projects, it was in my nature to always have the urge of throwing in more colours in my work. During my 2-month study experience in Japan, I was drawn towards the subtle quality of Japanese aesthetic as well as the beauty of indigo and natural dyeing. While I was studying the processes of indigo dyeing I realised that it is truly an art which takes years and tremendous amount of experience, trials and errors to become an expert. Although indigo maybe perceived as just one colour by some, numerous shades and depths can be skilfully achieved and it is indeed a very special and fascinating colour. For the past year, our main focus has been learning and experimenting with indigo. Serg and I went to quite a few places to see and study different methods and works of indigo dyeing, and although I am still very much curious and eager to learn more and become better at it, it is inevitable in my nature to always want to get my hands on dyeing with other colours as well.

I have quite a good amount of dyeing experience from my college days but every project was done using synthetic dyes in powder form. Once I decided to shift the focus of my work to natural dyeing, I realised that the knowledge that I gained from college can rarely be applied to it. In comparison to chemical dyeing, natural dyeing is not as easy to control, the processes take much longer and there are countless different methods for all the different plant and fibres. Even so, the environmental aspect of natural dyeing and the extensive processes yield much fascination and excitement to me. One can spend a lifetime to study and experiment with all sorts mordants and plants. This year we plan to spend more time to focus, research and produce works not only from indigo but from other plant dyes as well. I have started the year experimenting with 4 types of plants; onion, mango, pomegranate and black bean. The different shades were achieved by applying different concentrations of iron and alum mordants on the fabric. All the dyeing was done on linen.

Onion skins are available in most kitchens. I got some from my brother’s restaurant. The chefs there peel lots of onions almost every day and it is a shame that they usually throw the precious skins away considering how many beautiful colours they can produce. From my dye bath the colours achieved range from bright yellows, ochres and browns.

Next is mango leaves. I have a big mango tree growing in front of my house so it was very convenient to obtain the leaves. I picked the leaves almost a week before I did the dyeing so they were dry when I soaked them to make a dye bath. The leaves yield warm, muted shades of soft yellows and browns.

Pomegranates are full of benefits and they grow everywhere in Thailand. The skins are rich in tannin and can be use as both mordant and dye. With alum mordant they produce bright yellow. With iron mordants greenish greys, dark greys and black can be achieved.

Lastly, I tried dyeing with black beans. The beans were soaked in water for a night and I used the soaking water to dye the fabrics. The good thing about this is you’re not wasting the beans and you can cook the soaked beans for dinner afterwards. While in the dye bath, the alum-mordanted block appeared to be more blue than when it’s dry which was quite exciting. However, once dried the colour turned slightly more grey.

Applying different mordant concentrations on a fabric is a great way to test a plant to see which colours it can produce using only one dye bath. It is also fascinating to see how one dye plant can yield so many different shades and colours when binding with different mordants. Although dyeing with synthetic dyes is much faster and more convenient, I feel that the process of natural dyeing is in many ways more exciting and rewarding. It changes the way I look at plants and expands my appreciation for nature. There are still so much more to try, learn and discover. I will keep posting more experiments with other plants in the near future.