Guest Blog from Diana

Natural Dyes and Eco-printing

Hi there!

I am Diana, l am a clothes constructor based in Seville, Spain and have a passion for sustainable and natural dyeing of fabrics as well as eco-printing.

It was a long way for me to get to where I am now at. The whole journey started in the Netherlands, where I moved to in 2014 due to my husbands’ research. I didn’t know where to start my new life!

Back then I didn’t speak English or Dutch, and I didn’t have friends or any plans for my future. I was feeling that I was spending my life very lonely and that I was a total loser in this world of successful people. I even had an idea of going to study and get an MSc degree but failed my English exam, I tried to find a job fitting my background, but was failing in competition with the locals.

I was baking, knitting, embroidering, and making flowers and fruit bouquets. I could totally lose myself in this race, but all this experience engendered and developed a wish somewhere inside and encouraged me to work in creation.

I never stopped, I kept on trying and searching. I believed that even in the hardest times the most important thing is to never stop and give up, that we have only one life and it is in our hands to make it and live it the way we want.

And I am happy that in this journey I got so much support from my husband at every new step and all difficulties. He was always there for me and without his support, I am sure that I wouldn’t be able to find my passion. And the Netherlands as a country itself also widened my mind that you don’t need to live life as society says- be yourself!

The more and more I went deeper into creation the more I was getting interested in topics related to sustainable life. First, I started to redesign my old clothes and the ones from secondhand shops. But I started to feel that I didn’t have enough knowledge in sewing, so I found a school in Amsterdam where I learned how to create clothes, and how to change designs and looks, but also, I met so many talented people too. It was at these courses that I met an Italian girl who told me for the first time about the possibility of dyeing clothes using natural products.

Me at Amsterdam Fashion Academy attending the pattern–cutting courses.

The first thing that I tried was eco-printing. In 2020 when the pandemic started, I got a lot of opportunities to learn more things at home. I went through my first course and started to make prints of leaves that I was collecting during my walks in the parks and forests.

My first-ever trial to print leaves

Later I decided to make face masks out of those eco-printed fabrics and sell them on Facebook and Etsy.

My first totally spontaneous project. Seeing these masks on people made me very happy

Later I continued to make different kinds of bags using the same technique. These bags were also on sale in one of the many sustainable shops that are so popular in the Netherlands.

After I started to get better results in printing and started making bigger projects, like this bag pictured above or blouses and dresses. I continued my learning in natural dyeing. I was amazed at how big the world of natural dyeing is, and how many at first-sight simple fruits, vegetables, berries and plants could be used to get beautiful colours on fabrics.

For my own work, I decided to focus on avocado pits, pomegranate peels, acorns, tea, and coffee as my main colour sources. However, I keep on experimenting, and sometimes I get surprising results. Moreover, I just fell in love with the process of eco-printing. It is a fully organic process of getting flowers or leaves printed on fabrics using only their own natural pigments. Just fantastic!

Dyed socks using avocado pits and madder

The whole process of dyeing and eco-printing is 100% sustainable. I prepare the unprocessed fabrics in advance using either self-prepared iron, aluminium mordant, or soya milk to ensure that the colour pigments are well attached to the fabric fibres.

I did try many experiments with washing or sun effects on the quality of the dyeing, and the colours are indeed quite strong. For dyeing, I extract the colour from the source (avocado, pomegranate, etc) by boiling in a pot, and then the resulting pigmented water is used to dye the fabrics.

Often the results are quite surprising, could you imagine avocados giving a pink colour? I would never. For dyeing I use either self-collected fruits, gladly there are lots of wild pomegranate trees in Seville, and many oak forests around to pick up acorns. Or, in the case of avocados, I must eat quite a few of them to collect enough pits, but no complaints, I just love them.

Eco-printing is a totally different world. For prints, I either use self-grown flowers of several species, or use leaves, which I collect during my walks in the forests in the Netherlands. I mainly use maple or oak leaves, as they have the most amount of tannin and give the best prints.

Here I also don’t give up experimenting and trying new tree or plant species for eco-printing, for example here in Spain the best leaves that I love are from eucalyptus. For the process, I prepare the fabrics similarly, to dyeing, i.e., use mordants to enhance the strength of the print and keep the fabrics wet. Later I roll the fabrics with leaves or flowers inside and keep them under vapour for an hour.

Simple and sustainable and gives you unique and unrepeatable prints on your fabrics!

Natural print on bread bag using Dutch leaves

There are many things that I am producing out of these fabrics. Hair scrunchies, sturdy shopping bags, or bread/baguette bags to keep the loaves fresh, I also make napkins, skirts and dresses too.

I am especially proud of my shopping bags, as they also reduce waste from disposable plastic bags. When I see people walking in the market with bags I dyed and sewed, it makes my heart so happy.

Scrunches dyed by using avocado pits, pomegranate skins and acorns

A baguette bag with natural print

I also use various clothes or accessories to add my own print onto them or dye them into my favourite colours. I like to use t-shirts or hoodies and dye them using a special tie-dye technique, which gives just beautiful patterns.

My other favourite items for use in my projects are socks. For these, I also started to experiment with madder roots, and the bright red colours are just incredible. Moreover, plant dyes have positive properties and a beneficial effect on human skin. They are non-allergenic, antibacterial, and antifungal, which is an added advantage, especially in the case of socks.

Naturally dyed wool socks

There are many little tricks and tips throughout the whole process, I share them on my Instagram page: @nampri.studio There I also show the whole process of dyeing and eco-printing on several examples, so you can learn from there too.

I also share the results of my new projects and trials, so don’t forget to subscribe to stay updated.

If you are interested in purchasing some of the items, please visit my Etsy shop, where I sell most of the items I make. And if you would like to try eco-printing for yourself I have recently produced a complete kit, containing everything you need, including a pair of pretreated wool socks, flowers grown by me, hibiscus tea, logwood and acacia tree.

Currently, I can only ship within the EU only, but soon they will be available worldwide.

You can see my Master Classes on my Youtube channel as well.

My make-your-own kit with mordanted socks and materials.

In the near future, I will be hosting workshops on natural dyeing and eco-printing. Please message me via my socials to join.

I love to meet more people interested in natural dyeing!

Diana