Green is nature's favorite color. It is all around us, yet is still one of the most elusive and fugitive colors in the natural dye spectrum. Most natural dyes produce yellows and tans due to their flavonoid content. A true, vivid green is rarely available from a single plant source. You can dye with chlorophyll alone, but the color is often fugitive and fades easily.
Here are two color-fast recipes: a bright green using indigo and weld, and an earthy olive green made with weld and an iron post-mordant.
Natural Green Recipe 1: Overdyeing Indigo
To overdye with indigo, starting with a pale indigo vat is your best friend. Indigo tends to overpower colors when overdyeing, so starting pale create a great foundation for color mixing. Always dye your fiber in indigo before moving on to the next step: mordanting. This is because the high alkalinity of an indigo vat can damage the mordant bond, which can cause your dyes to fade prematurely.
After your fiber comes out of the indigo vat, rinse it thoroughly, wash it, and neutralize in a diluted white vinegar and water solution. Then, mordant according to your fiber type, tannin followed by mordant for cellulose fibers, mordant alone for protein fibers. Once mordanted, you're ready for your overdye bath.
Pale Indigo + Weld
Bright, luminous green · Cellulose or protein fibers
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Dried weld | 50% WOF |
| Fresh weld | 100% WOF |
| Weld extract | 5% WOF |
| Calcium carbonate | Small pinch |
- Dye your fiber in a pale indigo vat. You want a pale blue as a base for this green.
- Rinse thoroughly, wash, and neutralize in a dilute white vinegar and water solution.
- Mordant your fiber according to your method of choice.
- Make a strong weld bath using your preferred form of weld (see quantities above). Add a small pinch of calcium carbonate to the weld pot.
Use whichever form of weld you have on hand; all three produce a strong yellow at these proportions.
- Enter your pre-mordanted, indigo-dyed fiber into the weld bath. Simmer gently and allow the color to develop.
- Remove and rinse in cool water. Watch the green come alive as the fiber cools.
Fresh weld from the garden
Natural Green Recipe 2: Weld + Iron Post-Mordant
This is a completely different path to green through saddening the fiber with an iron post-mordant (no indigo required). Here, we start with a bright weld yellow and then "sadden" it with an iron post-mordant. Iron shifts yellows toward earthier tones, turning your bright weld into a beautiful muted olive.
Iron also increases the lightfastness of your dye, which is a bonus. The key to working with iron as a post-mordant is to use it sparingly and in a separate bath. Don't add it directly to your dye pot. A little iron goes a long way, and it's much easier to control the depth when you can watch the fabric closely and pull it at exactly the right moment.
Weld + Iron Post-Mordant
Muted, earthy olive green · Cellulose or protein fibers
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Dried weld | 50% WOF |
| Fresh weld | 100% WOF |
| Weld extract | 5% WOF |
| Calcium carbonate | Small pinch |
| Ferrous sulfate | 1-2% WOF |
| Water temp for iron bath | 140-160°F |
- Dye your pre-mordanted fiber in a strong weld bath to achieve a vivid, saturated yellow.
- Remove your fiber from the weld bath and gently rinse off any plant material clinging to the surface.
- Prepare your iron post-mordant bath: dissolve 1-2% WOF of ferrous sulfate in a separate pot of hot water, 140-160°F. Always wear a mask when handling ferrous sulfate powder.
- Lower your weld-dyed fiber into the iron bath. Keep your eyes on it. 1 to 3 minutes is the typical range. It will stop deepening the color after a few minutes.
Remember: the color will deepen further as the fiber oxidizes after removal. Pull it slightly sooner than you think you need to.
- Remove the fiber and rinse thoroughly under running water while wearing gloves. Watch the color shift and settle as it oxidizes in the air.
Choosing Your Green
Both methods are beautiful, but they produce very different greens for very different moods. The indigo-weld overdye gives you something vibrant and alive. The weld-iron combination is earthier.
If you're working toward a specific palette or a collection of fabrics, keep in mind that iron post-mordanting can be applied to other dyes as well. It will sadden and shift almost anything, and it pairs especially well with yellows and tans. It's a reliable tool for bringing brightness down and adding earth tones to your color work.
As always, take notes on your process. Every vat and dye pot is a little different, and the greens you find will be entirely your own.
If you want to go deeper into creating a naturally dyed green, join me for my Natural Dye Rainbow Online Class: May 5 + 12, live and recorded.
