To dye for...

Natural food dyes can  produce the prettiest colours! These samples show the results of frozen blueberries and raspberries on silk.  Even the mordants (stuff you add to enhance colours or make them more permanent) can be kitchen items like vinegar, salt and bicarb.

Basically this berry dyeing involved boiling up a pack of  frozen raspberries or blueberries in a couple of litres of water and stewing your fabric for half an hour.

My experiences with using chemical dyes (Drimalene K) are not so much fun.  My whole laundry looked like a battlefield, with red stained door, sink and almost a red and black Border Collie (sorry Monty!)  Just the tiniest dusting of chemical goes everywhere. I think I lowered  the water level on our local dam just from rinsing colour out of the cloth.

piccie from http://blueberrydyeworkshop.blogspot.com/Natural dyes are not so concentrated and of course, way less toxic. Try Google for dye recipes - even spices like turmeric and paprika can be cooked up to  turn out some pretty colours.