Flora inspired small-batch textiles, plant-dyeing and landscape wanderings
Scotland, United Kingdom
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Plant dyes - all the colours achievable from leaf, flower and root within around a five mile radius. The red hot poker root was a gift from a friend on Skye but that’s only several miles across the water…
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The first time I used weld flower as a plant dye it astonished me. It is stable, lightfast, washfast and has a depth of colour so intense that my dreams were luminescent. Synthetic yellows can sometimes be a little sickly. Weld has depth.
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Variations of of heather, bog myrtle and indigo on the line this morning. Sea mist lifting and another blue sky day.
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Oak gall, iron and two layers of leaf indigo. This deep forest green will dry much lighter but I’m liking these dark inky tones against the cloudscape today.
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Here’s the dry silk from yesterday’s indigo leaf dye sesh. It’s pretty much my dream colour. From seeds planted at the end of June.
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No ordinary shirt. Allan Brown’s incredible project is complete. He took wild nettle, flax & hemp, which he hand processed, spun, plant-dyed, wove & stitched. The buttons were made from apple branches.
"it’s a shirt and it fits and it feels amazing!"
instagram.com/hedgerow.coutu…
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Indigo, a myriad of blues. From the classic colour on the right to subtle teals and sea-greens. A mix of dye extracted from fresh leaf and powdered indigo. The greens are over-dyed with bog myrtle and heather. Linen & silk.
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A slow, small harvest of Japanese indigo this year but enough to dye a few metres of silk. The end result is lighter blue but enjoy this fresh teal whilst it’s drying on the line.
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Linen patchwork dyed with hawthorn leaves, gorse, acorn and weld, with printed elements. One from a couple of summers ago.
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Anna Kjellander is knitting a beauty, created with 71 shades of mushroom dyed yarn. Wow!
annakj.se
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Gorse flower on linen. More orange than I expected but I did pop some heather sprigs in the dye pot too and that has deepened the colour.
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From the dusty russet reds of madder through to sunshine gorse flower, orange willow, the mercurial and fleeting green reed flower to indigo and logwood. A spectrum of plant-dyes.
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Working with fabric is ephemeral, unlike ceramics or jewellery. So, these fragments of iron age textiles are as startling as they are beautiful. From the salt mines at Hallstatt, Austria.
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Lovely custom order complete, lots of velvet mosses, twiggery and flora. Customised with plant-dyed silk linings.
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Mushroom dyed wool threads by Anna Kjellander. Colours from twelve different species near her home. Wow!
annakj.se/
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Mushroom and lichen dyes, beautiful results from a Mycopigments workshop at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
mycopigments.com
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These socks are dyed with an array of mushrooms and I love them. Hand knitted by Siri Larsen of Montana Woolworks. Over on IG, Siri says that at first the individual dye-pot colours were disappointing to her but then she put all the yarns together. Delicious!
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Layering colours. Linen mordanted with oak gall and aluminium acetate. Yellow from bog myrtle to start and then indigo and iron dips. Indigo doesn’t react with mordants or iron but bog myrtle does. The inky indigos with oak gall + iron are a happy combo for me.
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I’ve been dyeing with madder (Rubia tinctoria). The roots are one of the oldest known dyes and they can dye a range of warmer shades from pink and coral through to deep red and purple. 1/2
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These dyed colours are all grown or foraged by Emma Kylmälä. They include weld, indigo, cosmos, madder, walnut leaves, eucalyptus, goldenrod and bog myrtle. Beauties!
towndyer.com
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Of course they wouldn’t have, because this pic has been lifted from my page out of context without credit, and with the glib ‘mediaeval’ tag.
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This beauty is by Ukrainian born textile artist Larysa Bernhardt. “I source fabrics all over the world and when they come, sometimes smelling of coffee and spices, sometimes of old books and lavender, well, I know there’s a story.”
larysabernhardt.com
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If only I could knit. These bundles of beauty by Annie Cadden are naturally dyed with walnut leaves, barberry/indigo, indigo, mushroom/indigo, indigo, sumac, lichen, walnut & yarrow.
fishercatfiberco.com/
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Back in the 1990s on my textile degree there was no discussion of plant-based dyes. Meanwhile down in Brighton my friend Sally (who I was yet to meet) was kicking convention with her MA in plant dyes. This week I saw her notebooks. Fresh as a daisy over 30 years later.
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Snow capped Torridon hills this week. I love the light when the northerly winds are here, it flattens and the sea and sparkles the mountains.
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A few recently dyed plant colours. Locally gathered, apart from the blues from logwood chips. Oranges from heather, yellows from weld / meadowsweet and green from reed flowers. Cotton + linen, mordant - mostly aluminium acetate.
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Seashells, moss, puffin and stitchwort. I’ve just just finished up this batch of tiny kisslock purses. They are fiddly ones to make but I like seeing them all together.
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The finished meadowsweet flower and indigo leaf on linen and silk. The soya bean milk treatment on the linen worked well and the finished fabric doesn’t feel too heavy.
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This colour circle of naturally dyed yarns were dyed in 1970 and still look vibrant today, over fifty years later. They include madder, indigo, cochineal and weld. Part of a collection from Denmark’s Teaching High School via museummidtjylland.dk
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Iris root. Nearly clear in the dye bath but packed full of tannins so gives shades of blue/grey with an iron bath. Joyful colour!
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Eggs dyed with edible plantstuffs. Including onion skins, turmeric, red cabbage and nettles. By Swedish natural dyer and knitter Anna Kjellander.
annakj.se
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Tablet weaving is a traditional Norwegian textile technique that doesn’t require a loom. Wool dyed with St. John's wort, lady's mantle and umbilicaria lichen. Created by Lucia Andalova.
svetlonoska.myshopify.com/
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Beautiful light on Harris yesterday, captured by rutha.hamilton over on instagram. She went for a swim as rain bounced off the waves. Wow!
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My plant-dyeing buddy Emma Kylmala lives in London and says the the weld growing wild in verges and scrub around her neighbourhood is especially prolific this year. She’s dyeing it as fast as she can. Weld dyes the brightest and most lightfast yellows. towndyer.com
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Drying. Blue-greens on silk with indigo leaf combos. Last year I was picking the leaf up until late November, can only hope for as long a harvest this year.
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The bog myrtle and heather has dried really vibrantly. Might need to dye more and make myself a scarf.
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Morning! Walnut husk and indigo leaf on the line this morning. Walnut a bit slap-dash as the silk was dumped in the cool dye-pot for 24 hours with no stirring, but delicious orange gold colour nevertheless.
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Walnuts. Wishing there were a few trees growing nearby. These colours are beautiful by Emma Kylmala. Walnuts are full of tannins and don’t need a pre-mordant.
towndyer.com
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Gorse dye, and the difference between flower and stem. Picking the petals really is worth the faff (top colour). The stems release tannins which dull the colour. (Fabrics mordanted with oak gall and aluminium acetate).
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This summer I’ve been dyeing many metres of silk. These I’ll use plentifully in bag batches over the winter months - my intention is to hoard less than last winter. Combinations here have the common theme of home grown fresh indigo leaf.
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Stitchwort, fly agaric, fern, bergenia, forget-me not. Just finished up this new small batch of kisslock purses.
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Heather and bog myrtle on silk. Sun setting on another beautiful day. Our summer has been condensed into a week in September and it has been magic ✨
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Madder root on linen and silk. Samples from the slow cooker dye pot this week. The deepest red is linen mordanted with oak gall and aluminium acetate. All the others are un-mordanted.
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I’ve been following the progress of this amazing fabric and it is now off the loom!
Allan Brown created it from locally grown nettle, flax & hemp. It is hand processed, hand spun and plant dyed. Woven on a 4-shaft floor loom.
instagram.com/hedgerow.coutu…
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Oak galls. Formed by parasitic wasps laying larvae on the buds. Galls are rich in tannins and have been used for ink / dyeing for millennia. I use them to mordant linen, to mute the colour of digital linen print + with iron salts to create soft greys. Always a treat to find them.
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Meadowsweet and indigo leaf. It will dry much lighter but this colour has been a total joy to create.
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Indigo leaf on silk. I’ve been using them for purse and bag linings this week and they are a sensory reminder of summer. These fabrics hold their memories.
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In progress. Snippets of meadowsweet, indigo, madder, iris root, reed flower and gorse.
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Direct print of an indigo leaf. Picked earlier, briefly popped in the freezer and then hammered onto fabric. I’ll leave it in a bright windowsill to see how it develops or fades.
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A snowbow this morning. Dusting of the white stuff to sea level, more on the way.
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A wide range of colour results from fresh madder root. Classic red to burnt orange, chestnut and pink. Achieved through a combination of dye strength, PH tweaks, fabric choice and base colour- some of the greener tones were overdyed nettle + iron.
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Walnut + indigo on silk. Previously I’d only dyed walnut husks on linen, and it was nice but fairly flat tonally. On silk it is far more vibrant - this has dried golden and shimmery.
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Morning! Meadowsweet yellow on the left and walnut over-dyed with meadowsweet. Plant dyed yellows are the best 💛
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It’s a drying breeze this morning. Here’s some fresh leaf indigo on silk that I first dyed last summer and gave another layer earlier. I don’t bother separating the leaf pulp before dyeing, most will come off in the rinse, the rest just brush off when dry.
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Naturally dyed yarn, wound onto card strips. These are left over samples that Jacqui Symons has collected from her workshops and dye tests. Such a beautiful way to see the subtle hues of the different yarns.
slowlanestudio.co.uk
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Piecing these plant-dyed linen snippets together. Indigo, madder, oak gall, reed flower and meadowsweet 🌿
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I love this testing of indigo leaf on silk by artist dyer Kristin Gardner. From one to ten layers, the darkest is a beautiful dusty blue. Fresh leaf will never create the deepest indigo blues of vatted indigo but it has its own blue beauty.
fieldandgardner.com
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Results from the fresh indigo leaf + salt. Light blue-green colours on silk which I actually prefer to vat blue indigo. Looking at the plants in the polytunnel I think there will be enough leaf for a couple of metres of silk next month. This really is small-batch colour.
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A few plant-dyed silks and linens.
From top:
fresh leaf indigo
indigo + oak gall
reed flower
madder
madder
oak gall
oak gall + iron
heather
Mordant: oak gall + alum.
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Gorse flower on linen. These winter colours are precious. Hours of work for a piece of cloth that will only make five bag linings. Using both plant-dyed and synthetic dyes in my work makes me value both for different reasons.
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Common reed results. This really is a magic one, not many plants give this intense green. (Colour brighter in real life). I use it in my bag linings and in smaller patchwork details to preserve the colour. It’s not one that likes repeated washes or too much sunlight.
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Stitchwort, forget-me-not, fern, bog asphodel and wild grasses. These have plant-dyed linings, silverweed leaf + walnut. {shop update}.
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Oak leaf. Beautiful colours by Danish plant dyers g-uld. Leaf, twigs + acorns can be used. They are a substantive dye, containing tannins so don’t need a mordant before dyeing. Top colour is the first dyebath - blue/greys are achieved with iron modifier.
g-uld.dk
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Day 3 of the katagami + indigo course and I had the courage to use the 150 year old stencil that belonged to my great granny. It was beautiful to use and testament to the supreme skill of the stencil maker that it can still function. Linen, over-dyed with nettle + indigo.
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Here is an update on the willow, logwood and indigo leaf silk that was on the washing line earlier this week. It dried so happily! Darker than I expected, with a depth and shimmer from the three different dye sources.
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The fresh leaf indigo on silk from earlier in the week. Still plenty of life in the leaves and this process creates a softer teal blue than the traditional indigo blue.
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This is where some of the dye-works go. On Friday I’ll have a new batch of one-offs available online including these printed and patchwork pieces.
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I don’t dye yarn, but Shilasdair Yarns over on Skye do, and they do it so beautifully 🩵
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Meanwhile in Shetland, it’s indigo dye day for Donna Smith. What a beautiful sight! donnasmithdesigns.co.uk
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A beautiful colour wheel of plant-dyed yarns by horticulturalist and craftsperson Julia Billings. woollenflower.com
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Alongside the silks, here are a few linens I’ve dyed this summer. From left, indigo leaf x2 (lighter in real life), meadowsweet x2, reed flower and willow leaf.
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Alder cones. A muted palette from these plant tannins, with iron modifier for the greys. Straightforward to use, no mordant required, but quite a cloying scent when the cones/twigs are heated in the dye-pot.
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This is what woad can do. Gorgeous blues on noil silk by Allan Brown. From plants he grew on his allotment this summer.
hedgerow.couture over on instagram for more. nettlesfortextiles.org.uk/wp…
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Testing ten plant-dyed linen swatches for lightfastness. These will be partially covered and taped to the window for several weeks. Ideally the colours will gently soften rather than fade to beige. All have been mordanted with aluminium acetate, oak gall and/or iron.
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Over in the Canadian PNW, Cheryl Verheyden is crocheting up some gorgeous granny squares with plant-dyed yarn snippets.
instagram.com/woven__heart
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Samhain. A liminal time when the boundary between this world and the otherworld thins. This understory of birch woodland is by Loch an Draing, a stand of trees along a fault line near here. In folklore it's the home of the Gille Dubh. An atmospheric place at any time of year.
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This is St. John’s Wort on sashiko thread. Hand-dyed plant colour goodness by Californian based dyer Heidi Iverson.
honeyfolkclothing.com
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It’s an inky one today. Willow leaf over-dyed with logwood. I prefer to extract colour from locally gathered or grown sources but had some logwood chips stored away. This I’ll over-dye again with indigo leaf. Logwood isn’t the most lightfast. Mordant and iron improve it.
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Various indigo variations and combos on linen and silk, a sliver of madder and a couple of oak gall greys. Using up snippets in small patchwork panels.
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Indigo yarn goodness from Shetland dyer and knitwear designer Donna Smith. What a washing line, what a view.
donnasmithdesigns.co.uk
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Tiny goldfinch feather. Only a couple of days ago I said I’d love to find one and there it was today in a friend’s garden 💛
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A beauty at the Museum of Scotland yesterday. It’s an Egyptian Coptic sock, designed to be worn with sandals. The wool was stitched with a single short needle (close to nalebinding) and scraps of different coloured wool were used. Approx 300-600 AD. The colours!
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Embroidery with plant-dyed threads by Mirjam Gielen.
etsy.com/uk/shop/MirjamTexti…
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Yesterday’s fresh leaf indigo on a metre of silk. I’ll do another round later in month to deepen the colour.
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