Dyes from garden and hedgerow plants.

Thinking that there were probably very good reasons why a certain range of natural dyes were used in industry (madder, weld, indigo, cutch... etc) I was a bit dubious about the idea of trying other plants in the dye pot. I thought the colours might be rather boring and might fade very fast.

I'm glad that a workshop run by members of the Online Guild of Weaver's Spinners and Dyers this summer has pushed me into trying a wider variety of plants. The results were more colourful and less boring than I expected - and the dyeing process itself was unpredictable and fun. The photo above shows a range of interesting shades obtained on superwashed merino wool, mostly with "Hedgerow" plants, many of them generally called "weeds".

I was surprised to realise that they are similar shades to those in a commercial knitting yarn I am currently knitting into a jumper. It's a yarn by Twilleys of Stamford called "Freedom Spirit" which is two ply DK. Half the yarn is shades of orange through to brown, this is plied with another yarn of pale to deep green (shade 505). So I can already see the potential in my dyed wool. Another possibility is to spin a mixed colour yarn to use for weft in weaving, probably using a commercially produced worsted in a single dark shade for warp.

Here's some of the best results. In all cases the wool wash pre-mordanted with alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) and cream of tartar (potassium hydrogen tartrate). Firstly, the common stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) and then my dyed samples.


The colours shown, left to right, are first a yellow green on wool with only the pre-mordant, in the centre an olive green produced by adding a pinch (about 1/16th teaspoon) of iron (ferrous sulphate) to the dyebath as an after-mordant, and on the right, a gold-brown from using a pinch of tin (stannous chloride) as an after mordant.




The following pictures show Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium; syn. Chrysanthemum parthenium) firstly the plant in our garden, then in the dye pot, and in the third picture you can see the results of dyeing. This time the pre-mordant only sample is in the centre, on the left is a gold obtained by after-mordant of tin, and on the right a deep green obtained with iron as after-mordant.




I was very pleased with the results of using Feverfew, and look forward to finding out from a light-fastness test how they behave over time with exposure to sunlight. I expect fading of the colours, but how much, how fast, and what will the faded shades look like? The answers to these questions will inform my future use of this dyeplant.

Dock also gave excellent results, and has the reputation of being reasonably light fast. I dyed both with chopped up roots and with the leaves of the Broad Leaved Dock (Rumex obtusifolius). I only have photos of the samples dyed with leaves to hand. However, the root produced excellent results with a gold-brown and a dark greenish-brown.

The first picture is of the plant in our garden, the second shows results of dyeing.

There's something quite curious about these results. On the left of the picture are two samples dyed in June, before the plant flowered. The first with iron after-mordant, the second dyed in the same bath but removed before the iron was added.

On the right of the picture are samples from July, when the plant was in flower. The right-of-centre sample is the equivalent of the left-of-centre sample - the result of an hour's dyeing with dock leaves of wool pre-mordanted with alum and cream of tartar. But instead of a yellow-olive shade, here is a soft pale yellow with only the faintest hint of green. Why? Is some dye chemical that was in the leaves before not there once the flower spike is produced? The relative quantities of plant to wool were similar, so it wasn't a weaker dye bath. Possibly there is a difference from the fact that in June the leaves were soaked in cold water for a few days before dyeing, but there didn't seem to be much colour in the cold water before the dyebath was made. On the right of the picture, the strong gold shade was obtained from wool of this soft yellow when a pinch of tin went in the dyebath as after-mordant.

I am keeping record cards of my dye experiments, these are very useful already when I go to the tray of samples and wonder which one is from which plant!

Today's reading: The Yarn Handbook

It's a wet weekend, so while trying to persuade myself that I'd enjoy doing some gardening in spite of the weather, and well aware that if I wait for a sunny day it might be next year before I get some serious gardening done, I've been reading.

My local county library service has recently got a new computer system and I am able to sit at home and search a revised online catalogue. This I have dived into, as the old catalogue was badly out of date and I had developed the art of requesting books that were still listed but "missing". This was particularly frustrating because many of these missing books were classics on weaving, spinning and dyeing subjects from the 1970s and 1980s and difficult to get hold of without the library. Out of county requests are rather more expensive, so I either tracked down 2nd hand copies or just gave up on some titles.

The latest bundle of books that really do exist, and turned up promptly in response to my requests, includes the one I've been reading today: The Yarn Handbook by Penny Walsh, published by A & C Black, 2006, ISBN-10: 0-7136-6995-1, ISBN-13: 978-07136-6955-8 (£14.99).

I've enjoyed reading this book, it's well written, well illustrated and I learnt a few new things. It's only a small format book though, with 128 pages including many photos (and a good bibliography) and I got to the end of it sooner than anticipated.

It starts with "What is a yarn?" leading into a brief and concise history of spinning, from ancient cultures to use of modern machinery. It is full of interesting details such as a useful little comparison of the characteristics of woolen and worsted yarns, and the fact that when the English started spinning cotton they could not produce good enough yarn for warp, so they wove a cloth called "Fustian" that had a worsted warp.

With an analytical approach, the book moves on to chapters on "The Materials" (i.e. fibres), "Yarn Spinning Mechanisms", "Spinning Techniques" (not a how-to-do-it chapter, but a useful, well illustrated explanation of different yarn construction), finishing up with "Yarn in Fabric" and "Contemporary Yarns".

So do I want a copy in my own book collection? No, it's a lovely, informative book but I already have more detailed books on the things that really interest me, such as constructing hand spun yarns, working with different types of fibre and how different yarns behave when woven.

This little book absolutely fulfills the brief given on the back cover:
"The Textile Handbook series was conceived as an introduction to various topics and techniques relating to textiles. The books are aimed at the student or the practised artist who is experimenting in a new area".

Traditional Natural Dyes

Attending a workshop on natural dyes gave me confidence to have a go at dyeing by myself. It turned out to be a simple process.

You start with undyed fibre or yarn, treat it by heating up with a mordant to improve dye take-up and lightfastness. Next, you heat up plant material to extract dye, and add the fibre or yarn. Different results with the same plant material are obtained by different using mordants, different fibre, different length of dyeing time and possible combining dyestuffs or dyeing the same fibre with two or more different dyes.


These are yarns I dyed last year, using traditional natural dyes purchased from a supplier of dyestuffs. I was impressed to discover what strong colours can be obtained from simmering plant material with wool. I hadn't been aware of natural dyes before I got Jenny Dean's book, and then had a go at dyeing for myself. I didn't expect these bright shades.


Left to right, the dyestuffs are: onion, weld, logwood, tumeric, madder and indigo.

Here's a group of shades from madder:








Blues from Logwood and indigo:













and a group of yellows, two skeins dyed with weld, and on the right, a skein dyed with buddleia flowers from the garden.












Encouraged by these results, I then decided to see what dye plants I could grow in the garden. Here are the results of using my own Dyer's Chamomile:

The wool (superwashed merino combed tops) was pre-mordanted by simmering for an hour with 10% alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) and 8% cream of tartar (potassium hydrogen tartrate). This percentage is calculated in relation to the weight of wool, e.g. with 100g wool, I use 10g alum and 8 of cream of tartar.

I picked a bowl full of flowers from the garden (do you remember the picture of my dye garden? there's no shortage of these flowers) and simmered them for one hour. Then I removed the flowers from the bowl and added the wool.

The sample to the left had a pinch of tin (stannous chloride) added at the end of the dyeing time, and was given another 10 minutes dyeing time. The green sample on the right was given a pinch of iron (ferrous sulphate) as after-mordant and also given just 10 minutes extra.

Now here's something I love about playing with the chemistry of natural dyes. One moment there is a pan containing pale yellow wool in a clear yellow water, add that pinch of tin and there is suddenly a swirling cloudy, orange developing and spreading in the pan. It happens fast! The wool is now orange.

Likewise, the pinch of iron. As it drops into the water and starts to dissolve, a deep green appears and spreads through the pan. Dramatic change! The wool takes the colour almost immediately, but a few extra minutes simmering gives stronger colouration.