What are your creative processes?
After collecting dyeing plants, I chop them into tiny bits and soak them into water for 12-24 hours. Then I make a decoction at 70-90°C and filter it to obtain the so-called dye bath. I then immerse the yarn, that I have previously treated with rock alum to fix the colour.
What kind of yarn do you dye?
Mostly Sardinian wool and silk. I also dye linen, cotton and canvas, but natural colors perform best with animal fibers. Our yarn is either sold in skeins or used by my partner Federica and my mother to manufacture our branded bags, scarves and furnishing accessories.
©La Robbia
Which plants do you use as ingredients?
I pick wild plants from the fields – madder for red, dusty rose and salmon pink, daphne for mustard, wild lavender for army green – and collect plant waste like walnut hulls (for brown) and onion peels (for golden) from local industries. Local people help too: every year they bring me tons of pomegranate peels.
Why are natural dyes better than synthetic ones?
They are harmless for the environment and our health, while synthetic dyes contain chemicals that are a major cause both of water pollution and dermatitis. Aesthetically, synthetic colours are flat because they contain a single pigment. Natural dyes have more than one, so they are alive and vibrant.