Name: Cathy
Message: Having just completed some canning, my utensils have become discolored by the spices I am using. Would like your advice on old-fashioned natural dyes from spices or vegetables found in my kitchen cupboards using 100% cotton or muslin. I'll sew my creations from heat setting? Don't want to get fancy ~ want to quilt, sew home items and will venture to other challenges later. Thank you!!!

Mere heat setting is not sufficient, for dyeing with natural dyes; you must, in general, boil the fabric with an equal weight of the dye material, as well as a carefully selected mordant chemical, perhaps for an hour, and then allow the fabric to cool in the dyebath overnight. Instructions vary according to the specific dyestuff.

I'm inclined to recommend against using spices to dye fabric for quilting, that is, when you are quilting with cotton, as most do. Most natural dyes tend to run in the laundry, which usually distresses the owner of the quilt. Items dyed with natural dyes should, in general, be washed separately from other colors. Be sure to test all fabrics, before using them to quilt, by dampening them and then pressing them with a hot iron on plain white fabric. Only if no color transfer occurs is the fabric suitable for quilting. However, you could make a beautiful though much subtler quilt by accepting that the colors will run, and washing them together before quilting. There's also the possibility that Retayne, widely used to fix dye in purchased fabric before quilting, might solve the problem.

If you decide, instead, to quilt with silk or another animal fiber, you will find natural dyes to be considerably more satisfactory. It is easier for various types of dye to attach to animal fibers than to plant fibers.

Turmeric makes a wonderful bright yellow dye, on silk or cotton, and saffron on silk makes a lovely orange. Most other spices and vegetable matter create various shades of brown. It is important, when embarking upon natural dyeing, to get some good books on the subject, as you do not want to waste your time by learning, by trial and error, all the things that do NOT work.

An excellent book on the subject of natural dyes is Jill Goodwin's A Dyer's Manual. You cannot get this from Amazon books, except in the outdated 1982 edition; the 2003 edition is much better (and cheaper!). The best source for this book, even for those of us who are in the US, is its own web site, or you can look for the 2003 edition elsewhere using a web search. Do not buy the 1982 edition.

Another very popular book on natural dyes is Jenny Dean's Wild Color, which is readily available. It has very pretty pictures, although the distinction between dyeing plant and dyeing animal fibers is pretty much glossed over.