Banana Fibre Yarn - Dyeing Process
Once the banana yarn has been hand spun, it is then dyed using non-toxic azo-free German dyes. Firstly, to get the desired shade, the dye recipe is tested on a small yarn sample to check the formula. Then the dye is boiled in giant pots, heated by a fire underneath. The women turn and stir the yarn to ensure even colour, then eventually taken out to dry. The whole dyeing process takes most of the day for each batch.The banana yarn proves to be difficult to dye as each batch reacts to the dye recipe slightly differently, depending on the dyeing yarn quantity and the original source. Therefore we have to be patient in the process and hope for the best with each dye lot as each batch can be a slightly different tone!
The women who work in the dye pool work very hard to try to match our leather colours and sample colours, but to reduce time and water wastage, we try to accept slight variations of the original colour where possible.
Because of this process, we are unable to use vegetable based dyes at the moment, as they are known for even more variations in colour outcome!
