An oldie, but goodie! Onion skins are one of my favorite kitchen scrap dyes. They’re easily accessible to just about everyone and don’t always require a mordant. I keep a jar on my countertop that I collect our onion skins in while cooking. Once the jar gets full, I usually put them to work in the dye pot! Here’s some of the colors that you can get with golden onion skins:

Details:

- Dye method: cooked immersion dye method
- Water used: rain water (pH of 7)
- Mordant: alum sulfate
- Materials to Dye Stuff Ratio (by weight): 1 : .5
- Materials dyed: 5 small material bundles are in each dye pot. Materials include wool and cotton yarn, cotton silk, cotton lawn, kona-like cotton, organic cotton sateen and Belgian linen.
- Extraction Time: the dye is extracted for at least an hour on active heat (low/medium). Material bundles are added to the pot and dyed for at least 2 hours (still on active heat and sachet bag of dye stuffs included). Materials are left to steep and cool overnight in the bath.
- Modifiers: after my initial dye bath, I modify 3 of the material bundles— one acidic modifier (lemon juice), one alkaline modifier (soda ash) and one iron sulfate modifier. These baths sit on active heat (low/medium) for about an hour.

(one material bundle will remain unmodified and the last remaining bundle will be put into the initial dye bath for a second extraction to test for levels of exhaustion.)

Wowie!! Even when I know what’s coming, this dye still gets me. What insanely bright, beautiful color!

Much like these onion skins, stay golden my friends!
— KB