Just out of interest, would the water left behind after cooking beetroot dye fabric? Would it be strong enough? Or would it wash out?  I’m assuming if it works at all it will be pink rather than red…but I just cooked some beetroot and my crafty brain kicked in! Lol! x

It would but it wouldn’t be colourfast - it runs out and fades quickly. To get it to fix better you’d need to use a mordant (colour fixer) like Alum, but even then beetroot is reknowned for not really being colourfast so ir would fade out quickly. It takes some work to get a decent colour from it, often it’s just pinky grey! It would be fun to just play with it and fabric paint with it but take photos in case it doesn’t last!

We played around with Beetroot dye for our Viking project. The vinegar beetroot is pickled in makes a better dye, actually stays purple-ish then fades to a pinky colour. You do need a fixer though. In olden days they used wee…....we decided against that!

Love Eli x

WitchypooNo2 - 20 August 2011 05:44 PM

In olden days they used wee…....we decided against that!

Love Eli x

They still do in Peru and I know a dyer that has experimented with it here too (ETA: not me though, just realised it might have sounded like that - eurgh!)
Prefer alum or another mordant myself

We tried to die some sheeps wool with natural homemade dyes, I think we used onion peels and turmeric (yellow) hibiscus leaves (red) and red cabbage (blue) and we used vinegar as a fixative.  Let’s just say it was a case of the process was definately more enjoyable than the end product, lol!  The dye baths were so vibrant, but when the wool had been rinsed none of the colour had really been absorbed and it turned out a horrible grey with what looked like blood smears!

Out of interest, how long did you leave them, and did you mordant?    They are on my list of dyes to try for the baby’s playsilks.  xx

ummsalam - 23 August 2011 03:40 AM

We tried to die some sheeps wool with natural homemade dyes, I think we used onion peels and turmeric (yellow) hibiscus leaves (red) and red cabbage (blue) and we used vinegar as a fixative.  Let’s just say it was a case of the process was definately more enjoyable than the end product, lol!  The dye baths were so vibrant, but when the wool had been rinsed none of the colour had really been absorbed and it turned out a horrible grey with what looked like blood smears!

The vinegar probably wasn’t strong enough to fix these colours, or maybe not enough material was used to make the dye (onion skins, etc) - you do need to use a lit to get a rich colour. Or maybe it was time as arwen-tiw says above. I’ve dyed with onion skins and turmeric and got really rich colours but used a better mordant than vinegar.

As far as I’m aware the red cabbage although it gives you blue water won’t give you a blue colour on your wool, and you’d need to mordant the wool with something more than vinegar to fix the colour.

I think the mordant is the key here - mordant the wool beforehand next time (if you do it again) and the colours will fix and be richer.