natural dye notes : sorbet sherbet colours from January
A big part of natural and botanical dye is loving the season that you’re in, soaking up the colour and embracing what you can create from the landscape around you. I wanted to share the colours I made in the high Summer days - they’re like gelato. Next year I’m sure the colours will be different, so it’s wonderful honouring each season as it comes.
I spent a good many days during the hot of January and into early February dyeing fabric. Using local colour (mostly) to create a bundle of fabric that feels like Summer’s sherbets and sorbets. I’m trying to keep better notes and journals of my dyeing; who knows why… it’s never the same next time is it!
Anyway - here’s what colours I made and what dye plants I used to dye it. Flowers and berries from my garden. Fallen tree bark from the forest. And a few powdered dyes as well, mostly because I still have them from a few years ago and trying to use them up.
Dahlia flowers - both dried and fresh in the pot. They created yellows, oranges and warm goldens. I also later - after this photo - made some very lovely warm browns. These are from the darkest purple dahlias that I grow in my garden. It doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference if I use the dried or the fresh blooms. But when I do a bundle dye, as opposed to a warm dye pot extraction process, I sometimes get some purple petal prints.
This divine purple is from elderberries. This is the first time our plants have ever produced berries (all the heat?) and while there is only a small handful, I’m so glad I tested it out. There’s a few more ripening so hopefully I can have a play again next week. Not sure yet about the lightfastness of it; berries are known for fading.
This beautiful eucalyptus tree outside dropped all it’s bark recently. I had as much fun playing with the bark, as with dyeing. I did have wishful hopes for some pinks, but we rarely get that from our trees around here, so it was more a pale brown. The addition of iron (rusty nails) created a very very beautiful grey.
Madder powder gave me these purples and pinks. No reds - I think the powder was quite old, not sure if that effects it or not. I am on the look out for a madder plant or seeds, as I’d love to add this to my slowly slowly growing dye garden.
You can read more of my Natural Dye Notes here, which shares my ongoing experiments in Natural & Botanical Dyeing.
I have an online course that shows the how-to in terms of what mordants I use, how to extract colours, do a bundle dye and lots more.