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Natural Dye Kits

Earthues is a line of natural dye supplies and natural dye extracts of excellent quality, and I'm very excited to have some in stock to sell!

Earthues is based in Seattle and was founded by Michelle Wipplinger, a master dyer who has traveled the world learning and teaching in the natural dye field.

cochineal and logwood dyed mohair and silkcochineal and logwood dyed woolnaturally dyed superwashyarn, logwood and cochinealcochineal and logwood dyed silk and wool
The COLORS kit is made up of 11 Earthues natural dye extracts, 3 indigo agents, 2 fixatives (mordants) and scour, enough fun stuff for dyeing up about 60 pounds of fibers. I've been playing with one of my own and mordanted protein fibers--superwash sock yarn, wool/silk yarn, mohair/silk yarn, cultivated silk yarn, finn wool fiber and superwash wool fiber and dyed with cochineal and logwood purple extract, a lovely purple violet variegation. I've done silk, wool, wilk/wool blend, linen and superwash yarns in indigo dips and plan to overdye for some variegated green and blues, my favorites.

Cochineal, with a very strong indigo dip:

naturally dyed suerwashyarn, indigo and cochineal

$125 might seem like a heck of a lot of money to spend on dyeing, but pound for pound it's about as good a deal as acid dyes/fiber reactive dyes. A half ounce of acid dyes/fiber reactive dye dyes two pounds to a mediumdepth of shade, and a half ounce goes for about $4.50-$8.00 (depends on whether you're going for Dharma's store brand or name brand Lanaset/Sabraset/Procion MX) so that's $135-240 to dye the same amount with acid dyes, not including the peripherals like gloves, masks, ph strips, soda ash & an acid like vinegar or citric acid. And shipping. The peripherals and instructions are included in the kit, so I think it's actually a pretty good way to break into natural dyeing, and not as expensive as one might think.

Nor as difficult. The instructions are fairly simple, whether you're an experienced dyer or not.

Anyway, here's the fun stuff the kit contains:

  1. cochineal extract (dactylopus coccus) ½ounce
  2. quebracho red (aspidosperma quebracho, Quebrachea lorentzwii) 2 ounces
  3. logwood grey (haematoxylon campechianum) 2 ounces
  4. fustic (chlorophora tinctoria) 2 ounces
  5. chestnut (costanea sativa) 1 ounce
  6. indigo (indigofera tinctoria) 2 ounces
  7. madder extract (rubia cordifolia/tinctorium) blend 1 ounces
  8. logwood purple (haematoxylon campechianum) 2 ounces
  9. osage orange (maclura pomifera) 2 ounces
  10. pomegranate (punica granatum) 2 ounces
  11. cutch (acacia catechu) 2 ounces
  12. iron (ferous sulfate) 2 ounes
  13. soda ash (sodium carbonate) 2 ounces
  14. scour, washing agent for cellulose 2 ounces
  15. aluminum sulfate (mordant for protein fibers) 16 ounces
  16. aluminum acetate (mordant for cellulose fibers) 8 ounces
  17. reducing agent for indigo (thiourea dioxide) 2 ounces
  18. Instruction book--48 pages, with color swatches and recipes for recreating them
  19. mask and gloves
  20. Ph strips

I think that's about it, all packed in a box that seems too small to fit it all.

Colors Kit
Quite clever packaging, really.

Earthues COLORS kit:

2 available


$125.00
Earthues INDIGO kit:

2 available

"A specialty kit containing two varieties of indigo, 25-page instruction book with illustrations, recipes and hints for creating perfect indigo vats, including fermentation and our new chemical vat procedure. Contains natural dyes and mordants for creating luscious purples and greens through over dyeing."


$125.00

Yarns dyed using these kits are available for purchase here