Monday, July 11, 2011

All things Turmeric!

People always ask me if I dye fabrics for my clothing line. The answer is both yes and no. When thinking about next season for a.d.o, I do small dye experiments in my studio to figure out what would work best. As we are already in works for Spring/ Summer 12 season (gosh!), I found this wonderful light weight organic jersey from a mill in LA. I needed to find out if this jersey would take color well from natural ingredients or not. So here begins my experiment..
I always have turmeric( for cooking curry) in my pantry. So I dyed a small swatch with turmeric and to check the fabric. Here's is my formula:
-Boil one table spoon of turmeric with 5 cups of water. 
-Let it simmer for 30 mins to cook the turmeric. 
-Wash swatch thoroughly with cold water to remove any impurities. -Dip the wet swatch in curry broth and let it simmer in very low heat for 20-30 mins. 
-Remove swatch from curry broth and rinse in cold water to remove excess dye stuff. 
-Hang to dry. 
-After the swatch has dried, check the swatch for imperfections.
a. Are there any uneven spots on the swatch?
b. Do you like the intensity of the color?


I was immensely happy with this fabric, it took color beautifully. We are using this for S/S 12! Have you experimented with natural dyeing?







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