.

1: Sulphured Yellow/ jaune soufre

12 cups water

1tbsp Marigold powder

1 tsp. fustic extract

Make a paste with the powder and 3 tbsp of water, then dilute and add the solution to hot water and simmer. Add the wet silk to the pot and stir gently so as to well distribute the dye across the cloth.

Soak in the simmering water for 10 minutes. Leave to cool for another 10 min, then remove from the bath and rinse.

2: Food Waste020619

Onion skins

pomegranate rind, avocado skins and stones, red cabbage, ginger peel

250g of peelings

add to a large pot of 400ml of water, bring to a very gentle simmer.

Add mordanted fabric (alum) ensuring all is submerged. Leave in the bath for at least 30 minutes, for a deeper colour the fabric can steep overnight.

3: Oak

Three handfuls of oak galls harvested in Greenwich park

alum mordant for the silk

First mordant the silk in alum solution.

Boil 3 handfuls of oak galls in 4 litres of water, cover and simmer for 40 minutes.

Strain and reserve the dye liquor obtained.

heat it gently and add the mordanted silk, stir and distribute evenly in the dye.

Keep simmering whilst stirring gently for 20 minutes. Remove from the bath and rinse off.

4: Venetian Red

Symplocos mordant

Madder powder

(both supplied by Michel Garcia)

Pre-mordant the cloth with symplocos mordant.

65g of madder powder for 65g silk and 4 litres of water.

This makes a divine red, very mediaeval. Simmer all together without straining for 1/2 hour and then remove from the bath and rinse off all the sediment from the plant.

5: Quebracho

1 tbsp Quebracho powder

8 cups of water

1 tbsp of iron modifier

(supplied by Botanical Colors/ US)

Boil the dye having having made a paste with the powder and diluting the solution in hot water. Add the iron modifier and stir. Simmer the cloth in the bath for 30 minutes then remove and rinse off.

6: Mountbatten Pink

1 tsp Quebracho powder

8 cups water and 2 tsp of iron modifier

(from botanical colours/ USA)

Make a paste with the powder and dilute in the warm water stirring all the time. Add the 2 tsp of iron modifier and stir

Simmer the mordanted cloth in the bath for 30 minutes, remove and rinse off.

7: Red Earth

A complex mix of logwood from botanical colours and blackberry made from foraged blackberry solution

1/2 tsp of logwood for 18 cups water

1/2 tsp of copper sulfate modifier

1tsp rice vinegar

Make a paste then dilute the solution and simmer.

Dip the cloth and simmer for 20 minutes then add a solution of blackberry bath from fresh blackberries.

Boil and rinse the cloth and dry out afterwards

8: Tyrian Purple

3/4 tsp logwood powder from Botanical Colors

3 litres water

alum mordanted silk

Make a paste with 4 Tbsp of water and the powder.

Add to the boiling pan of water and stir

Simmer the mixture and add the silk and stir regularly for 30 minutes. Let it cool down completely, remove the silk and rinse thoroughly.

9: Midnight Blue

18 cups of water

1/2 tsp of logwood powder from Botanical colors

Silk seeped in copper mordant

Dilute the paste made of 2 tbsp of water and the logwood powder.

Add to boiling water and stir.

Cool a little and simmer gently, add the mordanted silk.

The fabric turns a spectacular near black with the copper! Keep in the mixture for a further 30 mins, remove and rinse thoroughly and dry.

10: Ngalama Leaves Mud Dye

Nglama leaves (anogeissus leiocarpa)

iron rich mud

water

Soak the shredded leaves in water for 24 hours.

Mordant the fabric using the leaf extract.

Cover the fabric in iron rich river mud

allow the mud to dry and bake in the sun

Wash off in running water and repeat to intensify the colour until the desired depth of colour is achieved.

11: Gunpowder of the English

Couched Woad

Indigo

1/2 pound of gallnut from AMAP tinctoriale des Cevennes and Green-ing

iron sulphate

Make a blue ground of azure blue from the woad and indigo vat.

Mordant in the gallnut: gall nut 2%, boil 1/2 hour, keep the cloth in the boiling bath for 1 hour then remove.

Shading: in the dye bath, add copperas, stir well and plunge the cloth and turn until the desired depth of shade is obtained.

lift out and wash.

12: Olive

8 cups water

1 tsp weld powder from Botanical Colours

1 Tbsp iron modifier solution

make a paste with the weld powder then dilute with warm water and stir into the pan of hot water.

Simmer gently

Add the iron modifier and stir gently.

Add the silk and stir whilst simmering the mixture gently for 20 minutes.

Remove and rinse off.

13:Acorn

3 handfuls of oak galls from Greenwich park

12 cups water

Boil the oak galls and simmer for 1 hour. Sieve and reserve dye liquor.

Warm the liquor and simmer whilst adding the silk. Stir regularly for 30 minutes to distribute the dye evenly.

Remove, rinse off and put out to dry.

Oak galls are a natural mordant.

14: Chartreuse

8 cups water

1 Tbsp walnut leaf powder from Michel Garcia .

Mordant the silk with alum

Dilute the powder to a paste and add to the pan of warm water, stir vigorously .

Add the premordanted silk to the pan and simmer for 20 minutes whilst stirring every so often.

Rinse off, there will be a bit of sediment from the paste, and hang up to dry.

15: Lemon Yellow

8 cups water

1/2 Tbsp weld powder from Botanical Colors

premordanted silk in alum

Make a paste with the powder and dilute in the warm water from the pan.

Simmer gently and add the silk, stir.

Continue to stir every so often for 20 minutes.

Remove from the bath and rinse thoroughly.

16: Weld

8 cups water

1/2 tsp weld powder from Botanical colors

make a paste with the powder and 3 Tbsp water, then dilute it slowly with hot water from the deepen and add to the pan.

Add the premordanted fabric with alum and simmer for 30 minutes.

stir regularly to distribute the dye evenly

Remove and rinse thoroughly.

17: Van Gogh Yellow

12 cups water

2tbsp marigold powder from Botanical colours

Make a paste with the powder and a few Tbsp of water, then dilute with warm water from the pan.

Add to the hot water in the pan and stir.

Add the premordanted fabric with alum, stir regularly for 20 minutes. The colour will become very intense very quickly.

cool the liquid and remove the fabric and rinse off thoroughly in water.

18: Pomegranate

Boil up 90g of pomegranate skins in 8 cups of water. Simmer for nearly an hour gently and leave to cool.

Sieve to obtain a liquor and place in the dye pan.

add 2 cups of water to the liquor and heat.

add the scoured fabric with no need to mordant and stir regularly .

stir gently in simmering water for 20 minutes then cool off and remove from the pan.

Rinse thoroughly and dry.

19: Egyptian Brown

coming soon

20: Burnt Sienna

coming soon

21: Ecarlate

coming soon

22: Vermillion

coming soon

23: Scarlet Red

coming soon

24: Helios Red

coming soon

25: Cocquelicot

coming soon

26: Wild Elderberry

coming soon

27: Food Waste 300519

coming soon

28: Cassel Earth

coming soon

29: Cabbage Purple

coming soon

30: Smokey Rose

coming soon

31: Baga Kene

coming soon

32: Baga Kane

coming soon

33: Milk Blue

Ingredients: Couched woad and indigo from AMAP Tinctoriale des Cevennes and Green’ing (green- ingredients.com)

The liquor for the vat/which can be a fresh or reused madder dye bath/ is first boiled for several hours in a very big vessel with weld and bran. The boiling liquor is then poured onto the couched woad that has been put into the vat.

The mixture is well stirred every four hours, as soon as fermentation begins, small amounts of slaked lime should be added as needed. The whole process being based on a bacterial culture of strains of bacteria that need warmth and an alkaline environment, the liquor must be constantly kept between ph 9.2 and 9.6, at a temperature between 45C and 50C.

Indigo is only added when bacterial growth has given the liquor sufficient reducing power. The vat having been brought to its working state, cloth pieces can be dipped, several times if needed, spending on the degree of blue desired.

34: Stalin Grey

coming soon

35: Khaki

coming soon

36: Gay Green

coming soon

37: Indian Yellow

coming soon

38: Imperial Yellow

coming soon

39: Golden Ochre

coming soon