The Humble Onion Skin
The humble onion skin can be very versitile when it comes to natural dyeing, producing with a good alum mordant and modifiers a wide range of yellows, oranges and browns.
Living in France, it is easy to collect onion skins with the help of my neighbours, I have a good supply of organic onion skins to keep me going all year round. I just keep them in a paper sack in a dry place until needed.
I have heard it said that if the onion skins are kept too long they don't dye so well, but I haven't noticed that much even when using old onion skins.
I soak my onion skins overnight and then boil them up the next day until they are a real brown mush, then strain them and use the liquor in the dye bath. If the colour is not strong enough I boil them up again. The second boiling can also be used for a lighter colour.
The pH of the water makes a difference to onion skins, a too alkali dye bath will eliminate the red pigments in the onion skins, so if you want a more orangy yellow add a little vinegar to your water.
All the shades in the images are made with different strengths of onion skins.
Comments
Re: Onion Skins
I have a handspun knitted cushion that I dyed with natural dyes (including onion skins) 20 years ago and the colour is still good. I use onion skins for some of my plant dyed sock yarns - it gets some funny comments (no it does not smell of onions) but it makes a lovely colour. I get mine from Fodders, the health food shop in Hereford.
by Anne Shoring on (17th Sep 2009)
Re: Onion Skins
love u jaan
by Shalu on (1st Jun 2010)
Re: Onion Skins
sounds interesting will try it out today. plz let me know how much skin is needed to dye a small swatch of 10inch x 10inch
by Liz Chowfin on (31st Aug 2010)
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