Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The Mysteries of Natural Dyeing

These are the chrysanthemums that I harvested for the dyepots.

This is the extracted dye liquor.

And this is the finished yarn --- dyed a gorgeous teal green.
Last year I obtained a beautiful lime green from this same plant's flowers.
This is what makes natural dyeing exciting for me!

5 comments:

Karoda said...

I don't think I'll undertake natural dyeing soon, but I would like some suggestions from you for books to begin with...I think I'll wait to try this when my grandson is a little bit older and we can do it together.

Karen Stiehl Osborn said...

I started with Wild Color by Jenny Dean. It may be out of print now, but it's a good book for learning the basics. From there, it is a matter of picking leaves, flowers, bark, etc. and trying them out.

Karoda said...

thanks Karen, (my real first name is Karen, btw...Karoda is my signature name) I'll go to Amazon to see if its available.

Shoshana's Closet said...

surprising! What do you use as a mordant?

Karen Stiehl Osborn said...

This is tussah silk, so I mordanted it with alum. Today I've been getting some celery greens on bamboo thread from the same dyepot.