Perceptions of Organic Dyeing

The terms 'organically dyed' and 'dyed organically': what does this mean to you? Natural dyes or synthetic, or simply processed to organic standards?  Does it matter?


We use 'natural' dyes for the yarns we use for making our knitwear; our process is certified by the Soil Association to Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS). GOTS also allow dyeing using low impact synthetic dyes. This is necessary - it is economically and practically impossible, and probably unsustainable, to use natural dyes for everything. 


But - very often, customers are taken aback when we talk to them about what we do and our colours, and learn that most organic textiles use synthetic dyes. There seems to be an assumption that organic wool, particularly, is coloured with plant dyes, and often disappointment on finding this may not be the case. 


Of course, in the world of the chemist, the term organic is a little different to consumer understanding, too. 


We describe our wool as 'dyed to organic textile standards'. 

Natural and Organic Awards

We were delighted to have had our knitwear chosen as one of the three finalists for the Soil Association/Natural and Organic Awards Best Organic Textile. The winner was Organics for Kids who make a very lovely range of babywear.

Colours with Madder

A year ago now I did some experimenting with Madder, and so it's about time I posted something about it! I was interested to see what effect different water qualities would have. Whenever we are at a show, we get comments about the lovely bright reds we get - commonly people seem to get 'tomato soup orange'. My dyeing 'bibles' are three old books: and one thing shines through in these - water quality. The old dye-houses were in areas where water produced the best results. Madder does best in hard water, but Talgarth is in a valley of old red sandstone (not that I'm a geologist or anything - that's what is always mentioned when local agents are selling a farm....).

Using Madder extract at 10% weight of goods, I dyed samples on various shades of Shetland wool, using water from three sources, using observations around the water source as a guide to the sort of quality to expect:

1. Our spring at Pontithel, just along the road from Talgarth. This used to feed a pond for the Victorian lime kilns and charcoal ovens, now demolished to foundations, and for years was left to run through a pipe in the wall from where it drained through the ground and down to a stream. The end of the pipe had a great limey crust, so I wondered if this meant the water would produce even better reds.

2. The water running from an underground pipe at our mill near  Newquay, Ceredigion. The deposits accumulating around this pipe are very rust coloured, and the soil is on the acid side of neutral. The stone in the buildings often has rust-red colouring, and wherever water runs (and being an old water-mill there's quite a lot!) it leaves orange stains.

3. Tap water from Talgarth. This is what we usually use, and what I would use for a 'cold' dyeing and dyeing at different temperatures.

The wool was all mordanted with Alum at 8% and Cream of Tartar at 7% (Cream of Tartar can also affect Madder, some people prefer not to use it)

Pontithel: the slightly darker/duller sets have had iron added towards the end of dyeing. the photo doesn't do the colour justice - the reds are very full and a beautiful colour. This means that I am going to have to have large conatiners to fill from the spring every time I want to dye with Madder...

Felin: You can see the difference though, especially in the lighter red in this set of samples (below). Adding iron made the wool a little harsh - probably because of iron already present in the water. On fawn and grey yarns, the Madder produced some lovely terracottas. So - now there's 24 shades!

 Different temperatures also affect Madder. The best reds are gained by controlling the temperature at 60%. For this set, I used a precision temperature controller and dyed each of the yarn samples at the temperature indicated for 45 minutes, adding iron as before to get the darker colours. Another 6 shades!

 Finally, how much colour can you get just by soaking at room temperature? This last set were left at intervals as on the cards. The dye pot was stirred up daily and left in the dark. I wound some of the yarn afterwards onto a second set of cards and left them in the west facing window. I was pleasantly surprised to find little difference in intensity of colour after 2 months. I really must do some simple washing tests though as well.
This test was interesting - Madder takes time and patience to get a really good colour, lots of attention and slow raisin of temperature. Leaving it cold to it's own devices gave an even colour and left me time to do other things!

My old books have several other recipes and notes for madder, so I'm not quite done yet.....

Yarn Windings

Our yarn offer in 'Country Living' magazine has been very well received, but more importantly how enjoyable to speak to and deal with so many lovely people! Unfortunately, the issue coincided with some of the wettest weather this summer here in Ceredigion - the rain and damp making it so difficult to get wool dry after dyeing and delaying getting orders out. And so many more orders than we had anticipated meant we ran out of yarn and have to had start a 'waiting list' until more to comes back from the spinners. But that's the nature of such small scale production which, hopefully, people understand.




With all the dyeing and winding and packing though - I have started to miss my knitting terribly, I can't wait to get back to my needles and my trustee old machine. Mittens and cardies here I come!

Madder Project

We love Madder. It has an ancient history, and the colour red itself has many associations in so many cultures. It takes time and patience to produce good reds however, and is one of the more expensive dyes.
As part of the 'Real Colour Show' exhibition that we are taking part in, in October, we are working on a Madder project. We hope to try various old recipes, cold dyeing, controlled heat, experiment with mordanting and seeing what effects, if any, our three water sources have on the colour. We are not scientists however so this is a craft experiment, with controls as good as we can make them!
Our three water sources are the tap water here in our Talgarth studio, spring water from our land 3 miles down the road, and water from our watermill in Ceredigion. The latter will be water that leaches from the mill pond and filters a short way through the ground. We know that we can get great reds from our Talgarth tap water; the soil at the mill verges on acid so that may be interesting, and I don't know what to expect from the spring water.
Heat affects madder a great deal. Above about 60 C the reds start to turn brown, so we shall try 60, 80, and 100 C, and maybe slightly above 100C. The cold dyeing will also involve time - leaving 7 skeins to soak and removing them 0ne by one at intervals.
There's a huge amount one could do, but this has to be fitted in with all the other things there are to do round here - including keeping customers happy! - so we shall confine ourselves to using our Madder extract for the most part. If there's time, we'll try using some Madder roots, too. Experimenting like this also takes up rather a large amount of material.......

Natural Dye Exytracts

We have added our natural dye extracts to our Coriandr shop - see left for the link. These are very high quality dyes produced in France and are certified under Global Organic Textile standards; these are the same dyes that we use for our own Soil Association certified dyeing.

To Dye or Not to Dye

I work with organic wool. It is produced with minimal environmental impact and many must think that to add another process, such as dyeing, can only be detrimental. We have become very used to having colour applied to anything and everything, in whatever shade or tone we care to dictate. We want it to last forever even though we may discard the item immediately. Our textiles mustn't fade, but we change our interiors and wardrobes at will and send unwanted items to landfill.

I am not a chemist; I am a craft dyer, hopefully in the full sense of the word. These are my thoughts and ponderings from that perspective and I do not claim to have a full working knowledge of all the dyeing processes. But I am fascinated by the stories of colour and its development and use by the human race. As I look around this room, everything - from paper to ceramics, chairs, plastic, walls, everything - is coloured artificially.

In history, colour was precious. The best, fastest and brightest were the preserve of the Church and the rich. It wasn't all good news with these colours - arsenic, lead and mercury were just some of the natural ingredients used, with inevitable consequences for the dyers and sometimes the customer.

Humans love to be awash with colour. A walk down any High Street will show that. But do we really see it in such a cacophony? Many years ago I spent a couple of months in Romania, before the overthrow of the Communist government. The first thing to strike me on our return to Heathrow was the colourfulness - adverts, signage, clothing, cars - everything. It shouted! And it was quite overwhelming. It took me very much by surprise as I really hadn't noticed any lack of colour during our stay in a rural Romanian town.

But to get that amount of colour into everything we use demands additional and, quite often, toxic processes. Apparently, European dye manufacturers are having to move their production from Europe to countries where Health and Safety and environmental regulation isn't so expensive to apply - maybe because it is not so strict? It can be extremely difficult for the average consumer to find out what goes into the production of their textiles - but do many actually care enough? Have we ever thought about it enough?

Low impact, water based synthetic dyes are now available. Easy to apply and they leave the dye-vat exhausted (the fibre takes up all the colour). But still derived from oil? Do they still need to be tested on animals?

We decided to use plant based dyes. We enjoy the challenge of working with them, developing the skills, and the links with the past as much as the colours we obtain. But they need a mordant - a metal salt - to affix the colour to fibre. Organic standards allow Alum and a small percent of iron. And what about the land taken up by growing crops for dyeing? Shouldn't it be used for food? The demands on land now are for fuel crops and fibre producing plants too; dye plants are just one more. But the waste from the plants can be composted. And some plants grow on land unsuitable for food. The colours may not be quite as fast as synthetic dyes but they do not disappear at the first hint of a wash or a sunbeam. And they always attract attention for their subtlety, their gentleness and depth.

There is a place for both types of dye according to the end use of the product it is applied to. Maybe what we should be doing is minimising our use of colour, using small touches with all the undyed and natural shades wherever possible.

As far as textiles go - I aim to do just that. Wool and other protein (animal) fibres are available in many natural shades from white and cream through to almost black. Small details in dyed colours, carefully placed, can really shine out. I heard of someone who decorated her house very plainly but lit it by occasional brightly coloured textiles and painting, causing them to have a maximum impact.

Colour is special. Good colour is expensive and precious.