Dyeing from natural materials

While looking through my camera today, I found a set of photos from our last dyeing day. A groups of 4 people came over to my house and we went for a walk at a local farm to collect dyeing materials. The first picture shows some of the dyeing pots as we started. The top row from left to right is sheep mullien, goldenrod and birch bark. The bottom row (L to R) is onion skins, cochineal, and queen Anne's lace. The only dye in this picture with was not collected locally was the cochineal. We also had an indigo bath which we were playing with.

The next picture shows the preparation of the black walnut husks and madder root. The madder was a three year old plant I had in my garden. The black walnuts were taken apart and we used the husks and shells separately. The husks produced only a dark beige, but the shells created a lovely dark chocolate brown.

The next picture shows the range of colors we got from the different dyes. The reds were made from the madder roots, birch bark and the cochineal. The browns came from the black walnuts. The yellows from the goldenrod and the queen anne's lace, and the blues from the indigo.

The final picture is a close up of the blues. the two furthest to the right were both done with just indigo. the others were all overdyes with either yellows or beiges from other dyes pots. We got quite a range of teals. Interestingly, teal is the one color that people had told me would be hard to get when using natural dyes.

We really got a great batch of colors out of this set of dyes. Next year I want to put more madder in and try some weld and woad.