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Days of stained indigo fingers at the @Threadsoflifebali studio in Ubud, Bali. Guests had access to their incredible outdoor studio and learned how to process indigo paste, dye with ceriops, mud dye and more.

Would you come for studio time next year? Let us know in the comments!

#botanicalcolors #threadsoflife #bali #naturaldye #naturaldyeretreat

Days of stained indigo fingers at the @Threadsoflifebali studio in Ubud, Bali. Guests had access to their incredible outdoor studio and learned how to process indigo paste, dye with ceriops, mud dye and more.

Would you come for studio time next year? Let us know in the comments!

#botanicalcolors #threadsoflife #bali #naturaldye #naturaldyeretreat

Hands hard at work with our Textile Retreat with @Threadsoflifebali this year. Here our students are hard at work pulverizing Noni fruit mixed with turmeric to oil the yarns before dyeing.

#threadsoflifebali #bali #naturaldye #naturaldyebali #botanicalcolors

Hands hard at work with our Textile Retreat with @Threadsoflifebali this year. Here our students are hard at work pulverizing Noni fruit mixed with turmeric to oil the yarns before dyeing.

#threadsoflifebali #bali #naturaldye #naturaldyebali #botanicalcolors

Hands hard at work with our Textile Retreat with @Threadsoflifebali this year. Here our students are hard at work pulverizing Noni fruit mixed with turmeric to oil the yarns before dyeing.

#threadsoflifebali #bali #naturaldye #naturaldyebali #botanicalcolors

Due to illness I have openings in the workshop @botanicalcolors in Seattle, Washington. Link in the bio

Indigo underway at the @threadsoflifebali studio! Follow along with our journey the next 10 days

Online Workshop: Fresh Indigo Five Ways – Blender, Salt, Tataki-Zome and More! JULY 18, 2026
$150.00 @seaspellfiber

The workshop will be recorded and available to view until September 1, 2026

We are excited to host Brittany Boles of Seaspell Fiber for an online workshop using fresh leaf indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) and an array of techniques to get the most color out of your precious indigo crop.Britt is a wonderful instructor and we’re honored to work with her again and offer this workshop. This is our most popular indigo workshop as many people grow Japanese indigo and are looking for ways to capture the beautiful, elusive color.

Do you have a Japanese Indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) patch and aren’t quite sure what to do with it? Brittany Boles has suggestions for using the fresh leaf in a number of ways to extract beautiful colors including a lovely violet from the fresh plants. She experiments with various fibers and techniques that you can try with your own indigo!

What to expect from Fresh Indigo Five Ways:

Fresh Indigo Five Ways Workshop features information about cultivation and fresh dyeing techniques with Japanese Indigo/Persicaria tinctoria. Join Britt Boles of Seaspell Fiber, Indigofest, and creator of the global network Indigo Pigment Extraction Methods, for a comprehensive Live online workshop with our dye garden’s favorite blue.Japanese Indigo is an excellent project for creatives both new and experienced to gardening & naturally dyeing alike.

Online Live demonstrations & Q&A will walk you through each technique step by step. Learn 5+ techniques for utilizing your fresh indigo plants, no vat necessary. Minimal tools and minimal processing but maximum potential for a range of fresh blues and even indirubin purples. We’ll cover: Salt mash method, blender method, tataki-zome method, stenciling with fresh leaves and soy on cellulose techniques. You’ll also receive Britt’s indigo growing guide and printable pdfs with techniques, materials list, and resources.

#botanicalcolors #brittboles #freshindigo #indigoworkshop

Online Workshop: Fresh Indigo Five Ways – Blender, Salt, Tataki-Zome and More! JULY 18, 2026
$150.00 @seaspellfiber

The workshop will be recorded and available to view until September 1, 2026

We are excited to host Brittany Boles of Seaspell Fiber for an online workshop using fresh leaf indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) and an array of techniques to get the most color out of your precious indigo crop.Britt is a wonderful instructor and we’re honored to work with her again and offer this workshop. This is our most popular indigo workshop as many people grow Japanese indigo and are looking for ways to capture the beautiful, elusive color.

Do you have a Japanese Indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) patch and aren’t quite sure what to do with it? Brittany Boles has suggestions for using the fresh leaf in a number of ways to extract beautiful colors including a lovely violet from the fresh plants. She experiments with various fibers and techniques that you can try with your own indigo!

What to expect from Fresh Indigo Five Ways:

Fresh Indigo Five Ways Workshop features information about cultivation and fresh dyeing techniques with Japanese Indigo/Persicaria tinctoria. Join Britt Boles of Seaspell Fiber, Indigofest, and creator of the global network Indigo Pigment Extraction Methods, for a comprehensive Live online workshop with our dye garden’s favorite blue.Japanese Indigo is an excellent project for creatives both new and experienced to gardening & naturally dyeing alike.

Online Live demonstrations & Q&A will walk you through each technique step by step. Learn 5+ techniques for utilizing your fresh indigo plants, no vat necessary. Minimal tools and minimal processing but maximum potential for a range of fresh blues and even indirubin purples. We’ll cover: Salt mash method, blender method, tataki-zome method, stenciling with fresh leaves and soy on cellulose techniques. You’ll also receive Britt’s indigo growing guide and printable pdfs with techniques, materials list, and resources.

#botanicalcolors #brittboles #freshindigo #indigoworkshop

New Product!

Mordanted Scrunchies — Ready to Dye

Pre-mordanted scrunchies, prepped and ready for your dye pot. We’ve done mordanting for you: each scrunchie has been scoured and then mordanted to ensure your natural dyes bond evenly and develop their full, washfast color.

Whether you’re using madder, logwood, cochineal, marigold, or your own backyard finds, these scrunchies take dye beautifully and let you skip straight to the fun part — the color.

Perfect for sampling new dye recipes, using up leftover dye baths, testing modifiers, or making small-batch gifts. The fabric is soft, the elastic is generous, and the prep is done.

Details:

- Scoured and mordanted, ready to dye
- Made from silk
- Sold in packs of 3
- Suitable for all of our natural dyes and modifier baths

Use them as test swatches, party favors, dye-day projects, or just a quick way to put your dye pot to work between bigger projects. These are also great items to buy in packs for workshops, birthday parties and craft nights with friends!

#mordanted #pfd #botanicalcolors #naturaldyes

New Product!

Mordanted Scrunchies — Ready to Dye

Pre-mordanted scrunchies, prepped and ready for your dye pot. We’ve done mordanting for you: each scrunchie has been scoured and then mordanted to ensure your natural dyes bond evenly and develop their full, washfast color.

Whether you’re using madder, logwood, cochineal, marigold, or your own backyard finds, these scrunchies take dye beautifully and let you skip straight to the fun part — the color.

Perfect for sampling new dye recipes, using up leftover dye baths, testing modifiers, or making small-batch gifts. The fabric is soft, the elastic is generous, and the prep is done.

Details:

- Scoured and mordanted, ready to dye
- Made from silk
- Sold in packs of 3
- Suitable for all of our natural dyes and modifier baths

Use them as test swatches, party favors, dye-day projects, or just a quick way to put your dye pot to work between bigger projects. These are also great items to buy in packs for workshops, birthday parties and craft nights with friends!

#mordanted #pfd #botanicalcolors #naturaldyes

This Mordant Monday we have a fun question from the past!

A You Ask, Kathy Answers,

YOU ASKED: I’m just trying out your new cold mordant aluminum triformate and have mordanted wool, bamboo and cotton After applying tannin to the cellulose I dropped it into the aluminum triformate together with the wool, and the water changed to green. I guess it’s due to the connection between tannin and aluminum? But am I doing something wrong and are the textiles fine for dyeing now?

I want to save the mordant bath for further use but now it has a suspicious color.

Also, if the natural dyes I am using contain enough tannin on their own, do I still mordant with aluminum sulfate before the dye bath?Or in this case, would I dye the fiber first with a tannin-rich bath, and then mordant with aluminum sulfate afterward?

KATHY ANSWERED: It should be fine, even if it has a tint. We had someone else say that the mordant bath turned a little gray and she changed the water source, but it should still be okay. We say give it a try!

Head to our #MordantMonday Journal post - linked on our homepage to read more!

#botanicalcolors

This Mother's Day, we're thinking about lineage — the dyers, gardeners, weavers, and quiet teachers who passed down the knowledge of how to coax color from a plant. Whether she taught you with her hands, her garden, or simply by paying attention to the world, today we honor the women who showed us how to embrace the world of natural color.

With gratitude,
The Botanical Colors team

Join Kathy this summer at @Sanbornmillsfarm

July 22, 2026 - July 26, 2026 (9am - 5pm)
The Harmonious Palette: Beautiful Gradations with Natural Dyes

Workshop Fee: $800.00

If you love color, join us for 5 days of intensive color exploration and discovery using natural dyes and materials from the Sanborn Mills dye garden. We will dye cellulose fabrics in large enough sample sizes for your stash and inspiration. Our workshop teaches you how to work with tannins and natural dyes to create unique and harmonious color gradations that are perfect for quilters, stitchers and sewists. We will dye cellulose fabrics in large enough sample sizes for your stash and inspiration. Tannins have become one of the secret weapons in our dye studio as they improve light and wash fastness as well as impart an unusual base shade to the dyes. The colors that develop are intriguing and unusual. We will learn how to work with different tannin base shades. We will also add color modifiers and indigo to create stunning gradations for stitching, quilting, appliqué, tabletop and other uses. Participants will work in small teams to create generously sized samples suitable for projects.Each team should expect to complete 2-3 palettes, and all participants will receive samples, recipes and documentation for future reference and inspiration.

Head to their website to sign up!

#botanicalcolors #sanbornmillsfarm #naturaldye

We are especially pleased at how well marigold mix dyes cellulose fibers. So it’s a great way to create that sunny yellow on cotton and linen. (Kamala extractworks best with animal fibers and silk.) For details on how to use marigold mix, please see our page on natural dye extracts.

Marigolds are native to Central America but are used as temple flowers in India and used lavishly during the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) when Mexican families celebrate their departed loved ones. Elaborate altars and memorials are festooned with flowers, special sweets and remembrances of family members.

As dyers, it’s no secret we love marigolds – a true workhorse in the dye garden whose shades range from bronzy yellow to gold when dyed fresh. So we are happy to offer our popular marigold mix extract, a very bright and rich yellow color made from a mixture of marigold, kamala and tesu blossom extracts.

#marigold #botanicalcolors

For this Mordant Monday - we wanted to let you know we have FREE mordanting instructions! Did you know that? Head to www.botanicalcolors.com & to our Natural Dye Instructions page for all of our HOW TOs. We don't only cover mordanting, but how to use all of our products with recipes!

Let us know in the comments what you would like to learn!

#mordantmonday #botanicalcolors

For Sunday Visit, Botanical Colors sits down with Julie Beeler, the artist and researcher behind @theMushroomColorAtlas , to talk about her fall workshop and the surprising, luminous world of fungi-based color. From her base in the Pacific Northwest, Julie has spent years building a living reference of mushroom dyes — cataloging the reds, golds, rusts, greens, blues, and grays that emerge when fiber meets fungus — inviting dyers to look past the forest floor and into an entirely different color story. @bloomanddye

To read the interview head to our Journal on our home page!

#sundayvisit #mushroomcoloratlas #juliebeeler #botanicalcoloratlas

For Sunday Visit, Botanical Colors sits down with Julie Beeler, the artist and researcher behind @theMushroomColorAtlas , to talk about her fall workshop and the surprising, luminous world of fungi-based color. From her base in the Pacific Northwest, Julie has spent years building a living reference of mushroom dyes — cataloging the reds, golds, rusts, greens, blues, and grays that emerge when fiber meets fungus — inviting dyers to look past the forest floor and into an entirely different color story. @bloomanddye

To read the interview head to our Journal on our home page!

#sundayvisit #mushroomcoloratlas #juliebeeler #botanicalcoloratlas