Friday 20 January 2012

Dyes from Winter garden 2 : an array of yellows.

The dye plants I had in the garden were Genista tinctoria, Weld ( leaves) Dyers Chamomile and Tansy. I picked what  I had,



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I cut the plant materials up, soaked overnight added premordanted fibres and heated all of them  slowly  in  a large pan
From left to right Dyers Chamomile Gensita tinctoria, Tansy and Weld

The sunny result-very nice to have in the winter.  


As there is only so much yellow a girl can have I put rusty nails into the Genista tinctoria and tansy but in fact these only became a bronze/gold.(Top row), the acid yellow of the weld leaves stands out in the middle and in the fluff of alpaca to the right.  There was so much colour in the dyers chamomile that I repeated it and got almost  as good a colour the second time ( Alpaca on left hand side)
The alpaca I stuffed into a fermentation indigo vat- so now a truly eco green!

7 comments:

  1. Hi I am hoping that I have enabled conversations on my blog as SWeet Pea has described in her blog. -here's hoping!

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  2. Yeah it has worked now you can reply! Thanks Sweet Pea

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    1. HOORAY! so happy it worked easily for you and I hope you will enjoy having conversations as much as I have been in the last 24 hours :>]]

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  3. Helen, these dye experiments have inspired me. We have genista all along our roads. They are considered a "noxious weed" so I would love to have another purpose for chopping them up besides the trash pile. We have the tansy, also. Thank you for the very informative post!

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    1. How lovely to have Genista growing wild as the yellow you get from it is one the same as one of the yellows you get from weld (Reseda luteola) and the dye is called after this -luteolin. It is one of the most lightfast of the yellows so definitely worth getting.
      The yellow from Tansy is a deep yellow so worth getting too but I don't know what the anture of the dyes are. I wonder whether anyone out there in the ether does know! Glad you enjoyed the post.

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  4. I love the wonderful colors you made!! Best regards, Alexandra.

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  5. Thanks Alexandra
    I love it when people love the colours Natural dyes make too. helen

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