dye velvet leaves

How to dye velvet leaves

Learn some tips and tricks on how to dye velvet leaves for your projects.
dye velvet leaves
Procion Dyes

I have talked so many times before about velvet and its uses in flower making, it is clear I like working with this gorgeously soft and very tactile fabric.

In flower making we are only really interested in the velvets that are made using natural fibers like silk, viscose or cotton. And there’s a good reason for that. These natural dye fabrics dye well with Procion and other silk dyes and can be shaped with millinery tools.

In my numerous tutorials I have used velvet for some parts of the designs, whether it be foliage, petals, orchid lips, passion flower coronas etc.

flower girl headband
Velvet Strawberry Tutorial
Velvet is simply perfect for making leaves, but whole flowers can be created out of it too (remember the Velvet Camellia Tutorial, the Velvet Lily Tutorial, the Velvet Strawberries Tutorial , the Velvet Sweet Briar Rose and the Miniature Rose Tutorial to name a few?).
Today I have prepared a video which shows how to dye velvet leaves using several shades of green as well as other colours for a realistic look that goes well with your flowers.

Learn to layer your colours onto the fabric to bring your foliage to life with a play of light and shadow.

In this video I am using 3 different shades of green from paler lime one through to dark olive green.

Sweet Briar Rose dye velvet leaves
Velvet Sweet Briar Rose Tutorial

I also add a little blue and purple to my foliage. This is done to tie the leaves with the petals of your flower and is often a very good idea to bring the whole flower piece together.

Because of its heavy weight, thickness and pile velvet absorbs a lot of water when being dyed. When left to dry on a paper it will also lose a lot of water together with the dye. To achieve a brighter colour with velvet I recommend drying flower parts on non porous surfaces like glass or plastic.
Velvet is always dyed from the right side. Try to be gentle with your brush strokes not to mess up the pile too much. It is VERY important to consider the pile direction when tracing and cutting parts out of velvet and other similar fabrics.
As you can imagine velvet dries quite slowly too, especially on a plastic/ glass surface.
Below are the links to the fabric section with several kinds of velvet, special fabric brushes as well as some relevant tutorials available from my website.
I hope you enjoy the little video on how to dye velvet leaves below and from now on will be able to dye your own velvet leaves ideal for your projects every time! ☺

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