# Natural/homemade Stains - Beetroot?



## kalvt22 (15 Oct 2011)

I'm sorry if this question has been asked in the past (I did a search of the forum but it didn't really answer my question) I was wondering if there is a way to make a wood stain from beetroot, which won't fade (much) and if anyone had a recipe for this? 
Any other natural stain recipes would be appreciated as well (I've only tried iron and vinegar so far for ebonising oak etc).
Cheers


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## Harbo (15 Oct 2011)

I have never tried it but for fabric dyes using vegetable dyes some sort of fixing agent is required - you could try googling that?
I like beetroot - very nice roasted but it does stain the fingers when peeling it! 

Rod


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## Jacob (15 Oct 2011)

Should be googleable as natural colours for dying are a big feature in textile craft area.
Onion skins are good, and a whole range of other odds n ends including roots(woad, madder, alkanet etc)

Natural dyes here


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## MIGNAL (16 Oct 2011)

Be careful. Many of the vegetable dyes are fugitive (they fade badly). Easy enough to find out by applying your beetroot stain to a piece of wood. Cut it in half. Place one half in a drawer and the other on a window sill that faces the Sun. Compare after a few weeks.


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## kalvt22 (16 Oct 2011)

Cheers for the replies guys.
I guess walnuts would be good as well as once I removed the husks from a load of them and it stained my hands for two weeks!
Mignal - thats what I was worried about is there a way to colour fast the dye to stop it fading? alot of the recipies on the internet don't really say how long it will last for.
Had beetroot for tea so my supplies are going down slowly!


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## paultnl (16 Oct 2011)

If you are looking for a natural fixative, you better start peeing in a bucket.


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## milkman (17 Oct 2011)

The fix is called a mordant and can be salt or pee. I don't think it will stop it fading, it just stops it from washing out [in the context of fabric]


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## kalvt22 (17 Oct 2011)

Start peeing in a bucket? What if I already did this....


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## bosshogg (17 Oct 2011)

You could bottle and cork it, perhaps there will be good vintages and not so good! A mate once went to the quack and explained a very worrying problem, seems when he pees the result was blood in the urine. The doc sends him to the nurse to have blood samples taken and a urine sample, if he could manage it. Now this mate had caught the gardening bug from me, and had gone overboard, a greenhouse (only the rich could afford something like this back then) also in what he planted. Every inch of his bag garden was now devoted to vegetable growing, beans of all sorts, peas, tatties and beetroot. He had an especially good crop of beetroot in his first year, and beetroot was eaten with just about everything as the in season veg. You guessed it, he was peeing beetroot stain, he had eaten so much his kidneys were passing it out almost unchanged...thought :idea: he should have bottled it and sold as wood dye c/w fixative #-o missed the opportunity there. 
Cheers...bosshogg



> "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
> Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" T S Elliot


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## kalvt22 (17 Oct 2011)

Bosshogg - I'll get eating it then! Just a bit worried about the smell....


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## bugbear (18 Oct 2011)

MIGNAL":2rvb9xyg said:


> Be careful. Many of the vegetable dyes are fugitive (they fade badly).



Yes - and they're not especially saturated either; medieval textiles were all a bit brown and dull, at least to modern eyes that have seen full saturated pigments.

A couple of sites *selling* vegetables dyes claim they're marvellous!    

BugBear


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## bosshogg (18 Oct 2011)

kalvt22":22714kby said:


> Bosshogg - I'll get eating it then! Just a bit worried about the smell....



A rose is a rose by any other name ---- I say, I'm waxing lyrical again, must see the doc :lol: 
Cheers...bosshogg


> “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” Albert Einstein (hammer)


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