Edible Michiana

Homegrown hues: Common plants create fantastic fabric dyes

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  This yarn was dyed using yellow onion skins.

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  Carrie Beachey occasionally hosts “dye days” just outside her Middlebury home to teach others hands-on how to prepare and use natural dyes.

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  Artist Carrie Beachey prepares cabbage for for use as a natural dye.

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  Artist Carrie Beachey prepares two dyebaths to dye yarn and fabric using red cabbage, the larger pot with baking soda and the other without.

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  Fabric dyed with cabbage.

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  Yarn from a dyebath of red cabbage with baking soda.

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  Beachey says that, unlike in some other artforms, creating a cohesive palette with natural dyes is easy. “All the colors from natural dyes just go together,” she says. Beachey dyed these fibers (clockwise from left) with black beans, yellow onion skins, false indigo, pokeberries, pomegranate skins, mulberries and avocado pits.

• Photo by Ashley Swartzendruber

  Cotton dyed with turmeric.