MY LOCAL DYE PLANTS TO COLOR FABRIC AND YARN

My reversed approach

I started my adventure with plant dyeing somewhat counterintuitive, with practice rather than theory. Instead of diving into books and resources, I started with experimenting. Walking my sweet dog in a local park every morning, I had a lot of time to collect plants. The possibilities are truly endless: young leaves and first flowers popping in spring, weeds and trees giving their full potential throughout the summer, colorful berries decorating the bushes in autumn and broken branches, fallen acorns, and cones to be found before the first snow. No matter the season, nature always has something in stock for us.

Extracting the dye

When we would come back home, I would slowly start extracting the colors and testing the dyes on fabric. I tried to test a different plant every other day. Some of them were elusive and got spoilt when too much heat was applied for too long, some needed days and multiple heating sessions to start showing their true potential. Trial and error are the best teachers here. This post is not a how-to about achieving specific colors anyway - it’s an inspiration for your quest of finding dyes local to you and getting in touch with your surroundings.

How to store your plants

There is no one-solution-fits-all and again, you will need to experiment a bit. I can give you a few general tips though. Most of the plants keep their dye potential when dried. Put them on your windowsill or hang up and after they dry, store in paper bags or boxes. This way the plant material will be able to breathe and won’t develop mold. There are plants, though, that work best when used fresh, like goldenrod. Dried goldenrod produces a much paler color. My solution is to put it in my freezer. I used some frozen goldenrod 10 months later and it dyed beautifully. Another good dye plant to freeze is are ligustrum berries, the reason here is more interesting, though. Ligustrum berries seem to give a better color after the first frost, so either collect and use after the first cold days or just put it in your freezer before using (be careful, these berries are toxic and the fumes shouldn’t be inhaled!).

Collect with respect

When collecting dye material, please do so with respect. Take only as much as you need, and leave enough for the plants to survive and the animals to feed. In winter, birds eat berries, so don’t take away the food they really need! When picking the leaves, collect from many different bushes or trees, not too stress the plant. In essence - please, be respectful.