Name: poppy
Message: I love the beet juice that comes from cooking beets, is there a way I can use this to dye a white cotton and have it stay? Also pokeberries, how can I make a dye using these beauties? and set it as well?  thanks 

Most natural dyes perform relatively poorly on cotton. You should use wool, instead, for your natural dyeing experiments. Buy some alum to use in mordanting your fiber.

No, there is no way to make beet juice dye cotton red and have it stay. Even on wool, beets are no use for dyeing. Beet juice is pretty in the pot, but it's an exceptionally crummy dye. Look at the following page for samples of beet dyeing on different fibers:
Beets as a natural dye (Dye Forum post from January 10, 2006)
Even using a whole pound of beets produced only a light tan on wool, and barely more than a dirty beige on any other fiber. The problem is that it takes more than color to make a dye: a substance must also be able to cling to the fiber for it to be used as a good dye. Beets are so inferior as a dye that it's rather a waste of time to even try them. It is better to use another substance that has been found by generations of dyers to work far better.

Berry juice is no good for dyeing cotton, but you can use it for a pretty, though not very long lasting, dye on wool. Pokeberry as a dye is highly susceptible to fading due to light; it is not lightfast. Like most natural dyes, it should not be used on unmordanted fiber. You should boil your wool with alum or another mordant, carefully following a recipe from a good book on natural dyeing, before attempting to dye it with berries. Weigh your wool first, and then use twice that weight of berries. Soak the berries in water for a day or two, then simmer for an hour to extract the color into the water; strain the dyebath, and then simmer your wool in it for an hour or longer, then allow to cool in the dyebath. Do not sell anything dyed with berries unless you carefully label it warning of its poor lightfastness.

Good red dyes are hard to find in nature. It is easier to find plants that will produce yellow or brown dyes. The best natural red dyes include madder, brazilwood, safflower red, the roots of a plant called lady's bedstraw, and cochineal. Cochineal is really a splendid natural dye. With the correct mordants, it works well on cotton as well as on wool, though it works well on wool and nylon even without a mordant. You can purchase cochineal from suppliers such as Aurora Silk. Only a small quantity is required, compared to other red dyestuffs. For links to Aurora Silk and other natural dye suppliers, look in my list of Sources for Dye Supplies Around the World.

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