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,



 ' 
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!