Healthy Materials

Goldenrod brewing in Brooklyn. Foraged from Upstate, N.Y.

Goldenrod brewing in Brooklyn. Foraged from Upstate, N.Y.

Color + Nature 

Hand dyed naturally. Mindful design.

We use plants, not pollutants, to create color for our accessories collection. The beauty of aligning our design, development and production with the East Coast seasons truly defines how guided we are by nature. Each season nature brings us many gifts, including the colors we create. We expand on and discover more colors from season to season through growing dye plants and natural dyeing our textiles in house.

Our dye stuffs are mostly home grown, locally foraged or food scraps. At times we also use minerals and dye stuffs that we source from trusted suppliers.

Cotton, hemp, linen, silk, wool and cork are used across the collection. All natural materials that can be recycled, composted or renewed. We source from trusted suppliers and also work with local textile recycling companies to find our materials. The products we create with industry fabric scraps helps to add another one of a kind aspect to some styles in the collection. 

Coreopsis Seedlings in our Brooklyn Studio.

Coreopsis Seedlings in our Brooklyn Studio.

Dye Gardens 

Plant Color. From Seed to Fabric.

Seedlings start in our Brooklyn studio and then get planted in our different gardens in Brooklyn, Central New Jersey and The Jersey Shore. This has been a great study in how different plants from the same seed grow and bloom in different environments in the NY metro area and how this affects their color.   

We are a family of gardeners, farmers and plant lovers. Kelocabay could not be as close to nature as we are if it weren't for the dye gardens we created in New Jersey at my family's homes along with my urban container garden in Brooklyn, NY. When I discovered natural dyeing, I realized many dye plants already grew in my Mom's gardens. She loves gardening and flowers, so now in her retirement she helps grow and tend many of the dye plants we use in our collections.  

My urban gardening started back in 2002 when I first moved to Brooklyn. I started growing many different varieties of herbs and roses which led to potpourri making for holiday gifts. When natural dyeing found me while I was starting to develop my own sustainable accessory collection, it was a marriage of my greatest loves; gardening and plants alongside design and textiles. 

End of season Indigo harvest in Central N.J. dye garden.

Mom helping pull leaves for a Fresh Leaf Indigo Vat at the Jersey Shore.
Jersey Shore grown, Atlantic Ocean water, Fresh Leaf vat.
Atlantic Ocean water, fresh leaf Indigo dyed Raw Silk fabric. 
Home grown color on Cotton, Wool and Raw Silk with Brooklyn growing Indigo.
Peonies from my Grandma, my Mom transplanted to her garden.
Peony Leaves ready to roll. Soon to live on for future generations on our Textiles.
Unrolled and after an Iron bath, our Leaves Imprint was created.
Vintage Charcoal from Peony Leaves + Iron.
Beautiful bundles. Over dyeing to add dimension and more character.
Olive Marble // Olive base with Coreopsis Eco Print
Peony Petals rolling for Bundle Dye soon to become Peony Quartz.
Hand waxing the Peony Quartz canvas.
A beautiful Dahlia from our Central N.J. dye garden.
Dahlias dried and ready to roll.
Dahlia Daydream canvas
Fabric ready to dye + Onion Skins my local health food store saves for us.
Compost Camo dyed with Onion Skins.
Gypsywort and Coreopsis growing in the dye garden.
Gypsywort + Iron gives us our Vintage Olive
Our security friend John in our studio building brings us this Ivy from his home in Long Island, NY. It's over grown there and drives him crazy. We are so grateful when he prunes it back and brings it to the studio.  It gives us a light green we call our Vintage Ivy.
Vintage Olive silk and wool fabric + Vintage Ivy // Coastal Tote
Valentine's Roses repurposed as dye for our Textiles.
Rose Marble // Organic Cotton Flannel