Sustainable natural dyes

Recycling kitchen scraps to obtain sustainable natural dyes

Sustainability in all aspects will be one of the needs of our society in the future. And in our workshop, the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) are one of our concerns, we try to keep them in mind in all our work processes and incorporate them into our way of understanding the world.

Everyone in our homes and businesses, no matter how small they may be, should try to recycle and many times we throw away materials that are real treasures full of potential. And that we can use as sustainable natural dyes.

We know that ecology concerns you and surely you have had at your fingertips many of the materials that we are going to present you and this post is about sustainability in the dyes and take advantage of those vegetable kitchen scraps that with simple processes will help you to dye your threads or even paper, in a natural way. And that after these processes become sustainable natural dyes.

Surely you didn't know that the leaves of the organic carrots you buy, or the pruning waste from your garden and onion peels... contain dyes that can color green, brown or orange your wool, cotton, linen yarns or the paper you can use to draw or make crafts.

Those scraps you throw away and multiple foods contain natural dyes, which are very powerful by themselves or together with natural mordants, can make your fabrics, or yarns have vibrant colors in an absolutely sustainable way, also taking advantage of the waste you generate.

Foods such as beets, strawberries, blackberries, can give you magnificent colors ranging from pinks, reds or purples depending on the intensity of the dye. Greens you can get from spinach, carrot leaves. Browns that come from garden prunings, nuts, tea or even avocado pits can serve as color modifiers due to the amount of tannins they contain.

Craftsmanship and its processes have always tried to take advantage of the resources available to them and their processes have unknowingly contributed to the circular economy of the area.

In the search for new sustainable materials, environmentally friendly and beneficial to us and the environment around us, we are betting on new fibers, such as milk fiber, which is synthesized from milk proteins that are not suitable for human consumption, but whose properties make this fiber hypoallergenic and with multiple benefits for sensitive skins, besides being a biodegradable and environmentally friendly fiber.

With them we make our D-leite baby blankets, which in addition to having multiple benefits for the child and the mother, become a responsible consumer product.

In this case the border, with which we differentiate each blanket, is dyed with natural dyes from plants of our environment, ferns, blackberries, and this time we have obtained this beautiful yellow color from organic carrot leaves, grown in gardens near our workshop in Allariz.

In this way the whole process is totally sustainable and we enjoy magnificent colors with which to embroider the D-leite blankets.

Because in addition to taking care of our children, we also take care of their environment.