Naturally dyed fabric

Our approach is to reuse what has been made, to make something stronger, more valuable and beneficial. Therefore I decided to do some experimental work using food waste and old scraps of fabric – of course following the research on what fabrics impacted the environment less – I made naturally dyed fabric. The reasoning behind this experiment is because the dyeing process for clothes affects and damages the world and therefore if there is a safer and cleaner way to do it we might as well try.

To start this experiment, I researched into what fabrics and produce i can use to create natural dyed fabric. I used onion skins, beetroot, paprika and red cabbage. I used different kinds of fabric for this experiment to see what worked best. For the process of naturally dyeing fabric, i first pealed the onion skins and kept the skins as that is what i used for the dye. I filled a pot with two cups of water and let the onions skins boil. Itook it off the heat after 20 minutes. I used a sieve to separate the dye and skins then placed my fabric in the dye and let sit overnight. Once i completed the first dye sample I realised that soaking the fabric in warm water before placing it in the dye helps the fabric absorb the dye. I repeated this process with all of the food

Overall i really enjoyed this experiment, it links to sustainability and i think if more people knew about this technique there would be less use of toxic chemicals in dyeing. As you can see the dye merges with fabrics differently depending on the type of fabric, the natural dye merged better with natural linen which is lucky as linen is the best fabric to use when focussed on being sustainable. The only downfall when it comes to this technique is the time. it takes around an hour to dry the items and 12 to 24 hours to let the dye sink in and on top of that time for the item to dry.