Madder, indigo, walnut — the three colours I always have ready

Aït Hadiddou, Middle Atlas, Morocco

Cultural context

A synthetic red stays the same colour for twenty years and then suddenly fades to orange all at once. A madder red shifts slowly over time — warmer, softer, more interesting. The same piece looks different in ten years and better in twenty. When I tell buyers this they usually say it is a feature. They are right. But it is also just the honest thing to say: natural dyes age differently. You should know this before you commission.

Technique

1. 1

   Mordant the wool before dyeing. Alum mordant fixes the colour and makes it lightfast. Without mordanting, most natural dyes wash out within months.

2. 2

   Prepare the dye bath. Madder root is simmered for one hour, never boiled — boiling makes the colour muddy. Walnut hull needs no simmering, just soaking overnight.

3. 3

   Submerge the wet, mordanted wool in the dye bath. Heat slowly. The temperature, time in the bath, and pH of the water all affect the final colour.

4. 4

   For indigo, the fermentation vat is used. The wool is dipped, removed, and oxidised in air — the colour develops outside the vat, not inside. Multiple dips deepen the blue.

5. 5

   Rinse in increasingly cold water to set the dye and remove excess colour. Dry in shade, not sun. Sun fading is fastest in the first weeks after dyeing.

Materials

• Alum mordant
  Source: Purchased from the cooperative

  Alum is the standard mordant for natural dyes. It is non-toxic and does not shift the colour the way iron or copper mordants do.

• Madder root (Rubia tinctorum)
  Source: Grown in the valley

  The madder grown at this altitude is higher in alizarin than lowland varieties. The colour is more saturated.

• Indigo (Indigofera tinctoria)
  Source: Cooperative dye-yard maintains the fermentation vat

  Indigo cannot be used as a standard dye bath — it requires reduction chemistry (the fermentation vat). Sharing the vat is practical and traditional.