Natural Dying with Buffy & @thedogwooddyer
Natural Dying is something us here at Black Point Company have been looking into learning more about. Especially thanks to some very specialized artists on instagram such as @thedogwooddyer. We were lucky enough to get tickets to an event hosted by a fellow eco-friendly brand, Buffy.
Buffy makes naturally dyed sheets and sells all natural fiber made comforters, you can check them out here : https://buffy.co . You can also follow @thedogwooddyer on instagram to learn more on natural dying from plants and find out when her next workshops will be. The Line Hotel, located in Koreatown provided such a great outdoor space for this event. If you haven't been, you should check it out.
Liz Spencer (@thedogwooddyer) began by giving us a great introduction to how natural dying actually works, what you need, and where the sources of dye we were using that day came from.
These are our dye sources in their natural state before they get extracted into dyes.
Indigo - Blue
Marigold - Yellow
Logwood - Purple
We then had a fun experience learning some different Shibori fold and tie-dye techniques, but were encouraged to experiment and get creative. In the end, it's all a surprise when you unfold your bundle to see what you've created.
After creating our bundled fabrics, which in this case were natural pillow cases provided by the Buffy team, we went dying. Gloves on and bundles pre-treated we got the chance to literally immerse ourselves into the buckets of natural dye and watch the magic happen.
Then came the unveiling of our naturally dyed masterpieces! It was really fun to see what everyone had come up with, or was surprised with. It's amazing that these dyes came from all natural sources, completely waste free using minimal water, and reusing dyes and water sources again and again to continue to create different variations of color.
Our team is looking forward to incorporating alternate natural sources for dying when expanding our product base in the future.
Chemical dye baths in the fashion industry waste tons and tons of water, even when producing small batches. Water then continues to pollute our earth after it is released into waste streams.
There are other solutions, they take a little extra effort and time, but what you can do for yourself, the earth and others always makes a difference.