Whew, March has been jam packed with activities that my blog posts have slowed down! I actually did this entire project early this month, but it took a while to make the garment and then to photograph it. This was meant to be part of the yellow week of Sew Happy Color, read more at my previous blog post!

First off – here’s a peek at the finished product – a romper that doubles as the poster child for summer and sunshine! Yellow just brings so much happiness into an outfit and I’m surprised with how long it took me to add more of this color to my closet.

I decided to try my hand at natural fabric dyeing, specifically with turmeric! The benefit of working with turmeric is that you don’t need to buy any out of the ordinary mordants – it’s just turmeric and vinegar! The dye sticks extremely well and it’s the perfect first foray into natural dyeing.

Materials:

• cotton fabric (or some other natural fiber of your choice). I used 3 yards of bleached 44″ muslin from Joann Fabrics
• turmeric – I used 3 tablespoons
• water – about 64 oz
• white vinegar – 1.5 cups
• salt – 1/2 tbsp
• large cooking pot

Steps:

1. wash fabric as you normally would, leaving out fabric softener. I put mine through the washer and the dryer to get rid of any residues.
2. prepare your pot – I combined water, vinegar, turmeric in all at once, stirred and brought to a boil.
3. Add fabric to mixture, making sure the fabric is fully submerged in the liquid.
4. Turn heat to low or simmer – I kept it here for about an hour.
5. Turn off heat, allow to steep in dye for another hour – periodically stir and make sure all of the fabric is submerged!
6. Dump dye in sink (or save and refrigerate if you’re forward thinking and have a lot left over)
7. Rinse fabric until water runs clear
8. Wash and dry! I put my fabric in the washer and dryer and the fabric still turned out extremely pigmented and beautifully yellow! Keep in mind that if you decide to hang dry, if it is in direct sunlight, the yellow is likely to fade.
9. Sew into a fun garment!

 

 

 

Personally, i’m obsessed with how this turned out! The pigment is stunning and it attached to the muslin soooo well.

I decided to make a romper version of the Sierra Jumpsuit from Papercut Patterns! This is my second time making the pattern, and I decided to size down and leave out the zipper, and I think it turned out much better. I felt like I didn’t need the zipper to shimmy into the romper and sizing down fixed the gaping issues as the bust and arm openings.

 

A classmate of mine was also giving away her photography setup which came with 2 massive soft lights and a few backdrops! I’ll start playing around with these, but until I move into a new apartment, there won’t be too much space in my living room for the whole setup and all my sewing stuff… here are a few pics!

 

What forms of natural dyeing have you tried? What should I try next?

Cheers!

Danica ❤