Enys came round for her gardening stint today and you can see her looking pensive in the background with a visiting springer spaniel-mine is out of shot. I am running a workshop tomorrow to which Enys is coming. She came to survey my packs and decided I had not got enough range of colours. "You need golds, terracotta and green packs" she said doing her usual job of getting me organised. My studio which had looked reasonably tidy ended up looking as if Attila the Hun had been for a visit but we made up some fabulous packs so tomorrow my 9 students will have a choice of no less than 18 yummy packs . I have my eye on one which I find really exciting, dark reds, soft greenish greys with some lovely patterned fabrics for the surfaces so I hope that it will get left and I can use it as my demo.
Enys parting shot to me was " you need to use the cosmos for dyeing". You can see these in the pictures and they look so lovely I can hardly bear to cut them but Enys says they won't last much longer, I have not used them before but according to John and Margaret Cannon in Dye Plants and Dyeing they contain similar dyes to coreopsis.
I use yellow cosmos for dyeing quite a lot - I have had nice oranges and yellows with it - similar maybe to the ones from red dahlia blossoms. it grows nicely and seemingly needs less heat than coreopsis?
ReplyDeleteHi Bettina- my cosmos is pink and purple so if I can bring myself to cut them I shall have to see what they produce. I also need to dye with the last of my persicaria tinctorium too sometime this week.
ReplyDeleteif you (or Enys?) order flower seeds, keep a lookout for "cosmos sulphureus" - those are the yellow flowering ones I always use for dyeing. haven't tried the purple ones yet - but I will, if something nice comes out of your trials:)
ReplyDeleteHi Helen
ReplyDeleteWould there be any chance that you might have japanese knotweed seeds for sale at some point-or later in the year some plants perhaps?i'm trying to set up a dye garden at my house in France & don't have an Enys!
Hi Lyn Enys and I will have plants in March or so. We experimented with posting plants this year them this year and the three people who acted as guinea pigs said that they travelled well and the plants have established well.
ReplyDeleteGood! Put me on the list of those who definitely want to buy.But no seeds?
ReplyDelete