Fabric Dyeing with 100% Natural Dyes

Some of my dyed diapers.

Recently, in the course of homeschooling, we came across an occasion to experiment with natural fabric dyeing. For thousands of years people have been dyeing their yarns, decorations, and garments using natural items from the world around them. So while I usually do my fabric dyeing with powdered Dharma dyes, I was fascinated to learn more about the process of using natural items to dye fabric.

While the exact method of ingredient preparation might change, the process is really very simple and easy to adapt. It can also be done using readily available tools and resources.

Basic Tools:

• Fabric or articles to dye – The fabric should be made from a natural fiber such as cotton, bamboo, hemp, or even wool.
• Salt – used to increase absorbency and intensity of the dye
• Fruits, vegetables, leaves, roots, spices, tea, or other natural dye source (You never know what might make a good dye, which is why it's fun to experiment. However, I am also including a list at the end of the article with basic ingredients and colors as well as simple preparation tips.)
• White vinegar (acidifying the dye bath can improve color retention)
• Borax or baking soda (neutralizing the dye bath prior to rinsing can set the color and prevent or reduce fading)
• Water
• Large pot or basin
• Sieve

Basic Instructions:

1) Prepare dye ingredients and dye bath. Many ingredients will work best when chopped very finely, ground, or even boiled and mashed. The idea is to suspend as much of the color as possible so that you can create your dye bath. Often times what works best is boiling your dye substance in a fairly small amount of water. Then when you are ready to dye, mix this into a larger amount of HOT water in your large pot or basin to create your dye bath.

From: www,momentumfashion.com

2) As you wait for your dye substance to steep, soak all fabrics to be dyed in HOT WATER. This helps to reduce sizing in new fabrics, and also ensures the dye will enter the fabric evenly, not being soaked up gradually, wicking into areas, causing lighter and darker spots.

3) Mix salt into HOT dye bath. I use between 1/2 and 1 cup for each batch I do in a large bowl or pot.

4) (optional) Add 1/2 to 1 cup of white vinegar to the dye bath.

5) Place pre-wet fabric to be dyed in the bath. Press down, stir, or leave hanging over the edge of the bowl for ombre effect. Leave to soak at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours (for greater intensity).

5) Stir 1/2 cup of borax or baking soda into the dye bath to neutralize (only necessary if you used vinegar to acidify the bath). Let sit for a minimum of 20 minutes.

6) Remove fabric, place in sieve and rinse. Ring lightly and let dry.

NOTE: you may want to run your newly dyed fabric through a wash and dry cycle right away as the heat helps set the dye and also your item may be prone to bleeding for the first wash or two.

From: Natural Dyeing at www.K-State.edu

 Some Natural Dye Color Options:

Substance	Color(s)	Method
Tea	Browns, Ivory, Antiqued	steep to concentrate
Coffee	Brown	steep to concentrate
Red Cabbage	Purple	shred and boil
Blackberries	Pink-Purple	mash and boil
Turmeric	Golden yellow	steep to concentrate
Carrots	Orange	shred and boil/mash
Sassafras Leaves	Orange	shred, boil, steep
Walnuts (husk & shell)	Deep brown to black	shred/crush, boil
Blueberries	Blue	mash, boil
hyacinth flowers	Blue	boil, blend in blender
Beets	Red	boil, mash
rose hips	red to pink	boil, mash
Artichokes	green	boil leaves and blend
Grass	Green	chop, boil, and blend
Dandelion	yellow	flower heads only, boil, blend
Bay leaves	yellow	chop and boil

How to Replace Elastic in a Pocket Diaper

You're chugging along enjoying your cloth diaper journey. You have a system that works, a wash routine that combats stinkies, and you smile at your little one's fluffy bum. Then one day while folding diapers or in the midst of a change you pull out a diaper and find that it's spring has sprung. Shot elastic is normal for cloth diapers that have seen lots of use. Your water, detergent, dryer, toddler pee, etc can all wreck havoc on the elastic in your diapers. There's a market for used diapers even with the elastic shot, people often like to get a deal and replace the elastic and put those babies back into action. However, if you're handy with needle and thread you can easily bring your cloth diapers back to life all on your own. You will need: thread elastic seam ripper sewing machine scissors you're handy dandy self My 4 year old has been potty trained for a while now, but he still has nights where the occasional oops happens. I'm still washing diapers for the babe in diapers, so we keep a couple pockets in the rotation for big brother. He's a lummox and we only have a few that still fit him. One of them has the elastic dying on us, so we're going to use it as our demo today. Enter our FuzziBunz perfect size pocket in Large. It's white and boring I know. The elastic is going to give out completely any day now.

First, we're going to take our seam ripper and carefully undo the stitches along the legs and the back.

Then we turn it inside out to find the elastic inside and carefully pick the stitches taking down the elastic. You may want to use a marker to note where the ends were sewn, but it should be obvious.

If you have another diaper with intact elastic you can use it to gauge your elastic length. In this case we're using 3/8" elastic; 8" long for the legs and 6" for the back. We'll sew the leg elastics back in using the old tack down points as our guide. And sewing the elastic to the seam allowance edge.

Flip your diaper back to the right side out. Now we stitch back along the lines where we ripped out the stitches. I start a couple inches back into the stitches that are still in tact, remembering to back stitch at the start. As you go down the leg you'll have to pull really tight to keep the elastic taught and be careful not to stitch your elastic in the process. Continue a couple inches into the intact stitches and back stitch to secure. Repeat on the other leg and the back elastic.

Tada your diaper is back in business!

Blogged by Samantha of Turk & Bean, also find her on Facebook and at her blog, Cornfed Crunchy.

Make Your Own Pad Wallet
A Waterproof Wallet for Carrying Mama Cloth, Wipes, Nursing Pads, and more!

This is a simple tutorial for sewing your own Pad Wallet. The design allows you to carry both clean spares and tuck away your used items. The waterproof inner locks away moisture and odors to keep your cleans (and your purse or diaper bag) clean and fresh.





Materials Needed:
- Waterproof fabric (PUL, fleece, wool, here I used a waterproofed nylon - the yellow fabric)
- An attractive outer fabric (wovens work best for stability, you can use cotton prints for a wide range of attractive and inexpensive choices)
 

Your sizing may vary some depending on the size of your pads. Some pads will need to be laid flat, here you can see that I've folded mine into little pouches. I lined two side by side so that I could carry at least 2 cleans and 2 dirties in this wallet. Cut your fabric slightly wider than the item you wish to carry and about 4 times longer. My pads are about 4" when snapped shut, so I made my wallet fabrics 16" long. (see picture at left)

I created this pad wallet using a serger, but you could easily sew something similar by setting a close zig zag stitch on your sewing machine and overlapping the edges, or sewing them right sides together and then turning and topstitching.

 
For serging, place the fabrics wrong-sides together and serge the narrow ends.

Then lay the wallet-to-be attractive side down and fold up the top and bottom of the narrow ends approximately 1/4 of the way. Because my wallet is 16" long this meant nearly 4", leaving about 1/2" in the center clear (where you can see the yellow inner fabric in this picture) for clearance when folding a stuffed wallet. Pin, crease, or press lightly. This will form 2 "pockets" for storing your pads or other items.

Attach hook tape to one side and loop tape (velcro or aplix) to the other approximately 1/4 to 1/2 inch from each pressed/creased edge. Alternately you could use snaps in two or three points (outer edges and center), or even sew on a zipper here if you like that kind of thing.

I have pinned the velcro on at either end near the raw edges. You want to be careful if pinning through PUL which retains all the little holes you make in it and can lead to wicking for really wet items like wipes.

Open up the fabric folds and sew the velcro in place or add snaps at this time. You will be sewing them to the RIGHT side of the fabric, or the attractive print you want to show. You will have something that looks like this:

Refold the fabrics along the pressed or creased fold on either end. Serge the raw edges together on either side (alternately oversew the edges with a wide zig zag set on a short stitch length, or turn inside out and seam, turning and top-stitching).

You will end up with this:

Also great for:
~ wipes (wet or dry)
~ nursing pads
~ tissues
~ menstrual cup and pantyliners
~ snacks
~ napkins
~ and more