Name: sydne
Message: hi I am doing a science fair project on dyeing. I am going to do what fabric holds a natural dye the best after washing it ten times. I have three questions. What fabric choices should I use? What dye should I use and last but not least how many dyes should I use and how many fabric choices. I was also wondering if you thought this would be a very successful project. Thank you so much for reading my letter and your website has already been very helpful.

What natural dye are you going to use? Often people write about using a "natural dye" that is no dye at all. For example, beets cannot be used to produce a red dye, and it takes a huge quantity of them to make even a dull beige dye. Don't use beets. Coffee and tea are better, especially on cotton. Turmeric is good (though susceptible to fading by light) and can be found in the spice department at most decent grocery stores. Mail-order natural dyes are the best, including such dyes as cochineal; I recommend Aurora Silk as a good source for mail-ordering natural dyes (see contact information on my Sources for Dyeing Supplies page).

Synthetic fibers other than rayon and nylon cannot be dyed with any ordinary dye. Stick to natural fibers, if you want the dye to work. Protein fibers such as wool can be dyed with many more different substances than can cellulose fibers such as cotton. Comparing a swatch of white wool fabric, a swatch of white cotton fabric, and a swatch of white polyester fabric, doing a different swatch of all three fibers with each dye you decide to try, would be a nice project. Put your swatches in a net ligergie bag to run them through the washing machine repeatedly without fear of losing any of the small pieces of fabric (they can disappear down the drain!).

Many natural dyes can be applied by boiling the fabric for half an hour or an hour in water with an equal volume of the dyestuff. Most natural dyes require that the fabric be pre-treated before dyeing by mordanting, which involves boiling the fabric with a substance called a mordant. Alum is a good mordant to use and can be found with the pickling spices in some grocery stores, or in some pharamcies, as well as by mail-order from dye suppliers. Some people say that salt and vinegar are mordants, but they are not. You will need more information on this. Your public library probably has several books on natural dyes. Also see "About Natural Dyes", at http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/naturaldyes.shtml.

How many should you try? That's something I can't help you with. It's your decision, based on how difficult you find this project to be.

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