Natural Dyeing with Yellow Onion Skins Tutorial
I decided to venture into the world of natural dyeing! I am starting with natural onion dyeing because it's easy and only called for a salt solution. Most dyeing calls for chemicals, but there are ways to get natural colors without the chemicals. Onion skin dyeing is one of the easiest types of natural dyeing.
I collected my onion skins from meals I made over a month or so. They are easy to collect because they are dry and don't go bad. I used the little yellow onions that come in a bag because they are have so much peel on them!
Supplies:
natural fibers to dye- cotton, linen, and I used a vintage doily that was probably cotton
1 cup salt and 6 cups of water to presoak the fabric
skins of about 8 yellow onions
Water
Large Pot
I tied up the fabric with various shibori folding techniques and then soaked them in the salt solution for about an hour. I warmed the salt solution before soaking to make sure the salt was totally dissolved. I saved the salt solution after soaking so I could add it to the pot after a while.
Then I started the heat on my big pot and added the clean onion skins. I let them start to get hot for about 20 min. I never let the solution boil but just kept it at a simmer. I bought a little hot plate to do this in my studio space but I did the test swatches on the stove. I have a lot of fun projects planned for this hot plate :)
I added the fabric in and let it simmer for 2 hours. After the fabric started to show some color (about 1 hour) I added the salt solution to the pot. After 2 hours I took the fabric out of the natural onion dye and let them cool. I rinsed them with cold water. Then I washed them with syntrapol. I heat set them with the iron on high. I think they turned out a really nice peachy color. I'm definitely excited to try more natural dyeing!