WAIKOLOA — Wai’ala Ahn and Justin Cool Tripp are happiest when they’re feeling blue. The two harvest and source plants from local farmers and make completely biodegradable dyes from fermented plants.

Aug. 11—Indigo blossoms once ran deep through the fields of South Carolina. As if out of the fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin," the plant could be transformed into "blue gold" — at least, that's what many ...

There are thousands of natural materials that make glorious colors in fabric, from rhubarb and dahlias to indigo and groundnuts. Natural dyeing is an ancient tradition, and the techniques behind this ...

Stony Creek Colors is convincing farmers who used to grow tobacco to switch to indigo plants and selling the natural blue dye to fabric producers, including denim giant Cone Mills. The Goodlettsville, ...

Sew Valley’s plant-based dye course will teach participants of all skill levels how to manipulate fabric and indigo plants to produce a rich blue color that is sustainable, unique, and free of toxic ...

Ancient South Americans made blue fabrics to dye for. A piece of approximately 6,000-year-old woven cotton material from Peru gets its blue hue from indigo dye, making it the oldest known example of ...

A vat of indigo dye contains the magic of chemistry and the history of ancient civilizations. It’s also the reason your denim jeans are blue. At a recent Blue Hands event, textile artist Melanie Audet ...

Shibori is the Japanese art of binding and folding fabric in different patterns before dyeing. It is the perfect technique to use when naturally dyeing with indigo because all of the folded areas ...

MINAMISOMA, Japan — Because of radiation released by the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster a decade ago, farmers in nearby Minamisoma weren’t allowed to grow crops for two years. After the restriction ...

Take a good look at the piece of cloth pictured at the top of this story. That was made 6,000 years ago by people living on the coast of Peru. Now check out those faint blue lines running through it.

Blue denim is currently dyed with synthetic indigo and a reducing chemical. New research in blue jean dyeing is offering a stitch of hope in the denim industry. Blue denim is currently dyed with ...