One day each summer our museum holds a day camp for kids, each year historically themed. This year it was the fur traders who set up trading posts along the rivers in Michigan.
The idea is to do a craft project that might reflect the theme. This year we offered the kids dyeing with natural stuffs, painting a small canoe - the mode of transportation for the traders, making a leather pouch and dipping candles.
Friend Laurie and I did the natural dyeing project. We read up on natural dyes, the process, the suggestions. The more we read the more confused we were. Are blueberries a dye or a stain? What about black walnut hulls, would someone with a nut allergy suffer? You can get really pretty colors from avocado hulls and the seed but they take lots of time in the dye bath.
And what to use for the dye pot? The dye is supposed to be a hot bath. I had a eureka moment at our thrift store when I saw these old coffee urns for $2. each. We ended up with marigold flowers, which are a fool proof dye, onion skins, another fool proof option and we had a smaller amount of red onion skins but I thought "why not?"
Friend Laurie helped the kids tie their shirts
This was the dye for the yellow onion skins. I've used them for Easter eggs and they come out brown, these shirts came out a golden fall yellow.
The marigolds ( I used only the yellow flowers ) came out a beautiful lemon yellow.
Now, the directions for dyeing say the item should sit in the dye for about an hour. The kids don't have that kind of attention span we discovered too late. They were "dipped and done."
We didn't have access to running water so set up a rinse station. Four buckets, each coming out a little lighter with each rinse.
And here they are, hanging to dry on the pickle ball fence. I was more concerned with getting all seven in the photo than showing their individual designs and the designs were quite subtle anyway.
We had time to kill. Lots of time. LOTS. So for a just in case activity we brought flowers, mallets and hammers and pounded flowers.
It was a learning experience. Some flowers gave no color, some gave a lot. We learned to take the flower apart and put it back together face down on the cloth, building the flower back again.
They tried leaves, found red roses gave a purple, hydrangeas gave no color, pansies were perfect.
We had one shirt left and some dye in the pots so I dipped the top half in the yellow onion dye and the bottom half in the red onion pot. The fun thing was the red onion skin dye turned green, a beautiful olive green when it came in contact with air. Even knowing this, the kids all chose the marigold pot with one little guy choosing the yellow onion skin pot.
