Malaysian batik maker uses vegetable scraps to create natural dyes

Ummi is an advocate of sustainable fashion and is driven to create safer products for the environment. Photos: Ummi Kalthum Junid

Ummi Kalthum Junid, 35, is careful about the vegetable scraps that go into her rubbish bin. Instead of discarding onion peel, garlic skin and spices that she uses in her cooking, she boils them to extracts their natural colours which she then uses to dye fabric.

The dyed fabric pieces are then stitched together into patchwork designs that she frames and hangs as decorative wall art in her living room.