This year, mixed in with my vegetables, I'm planting flowers that can be used for dyeing yarn. After receiving Wild Color
by Jenny Dean for Christmas I became excited about expanding my yarn dyeing repertoire with natural materials. Last month my wonderful group of knitting friends helped me celebrate my birthday with a gift of natural dyeing supplies from A Verb for Keeping Warm, including the book A Dyer's Garden
by Rita Buchanan:
Thank you Angie, Karen, Lisa, Amber, and Betsy! |
The books have been extremely helpful while I've been learning about natural dyeing. Wild Color
I am fortunate to have a big garden space with good soil, but given that I usually fill it up with veggies, the information in A Dyer's Garden
BLUE - Dyer's Knotweed (Japanese Indigo), and Woad
YELLOW, TAN, ORANGE, and GOLD - Dahlias, Marigolds, Yarrow, and Zinnias
GREEN, and PURPLE - Hibiscus, Hollyhocks, and Purple Basil
I pride myself on my gardening skills but I've had trouble with one plant in particular. I now have seedlings of all the plants listed above, including some that are known to be difficult to germinate:
However, did you notice that a primary color is missing from my list above? Here is my Madder plant, which I ordered in hopes of producing red dye:
The instructions for growing Madder for red dye go something like this:
Build a raised bed in order to contain the roots of the Madder plant. Plant a seedling and allow it to grow for two years, or until it spreads to fill a 4 sq. ft. space. Dig up the roots, and wash them thoroughly. Chop up the roots and spread them on a mesh rack until they are completely dry and shriveled.
After reading these instructions, and realizing that this jar from my birthday package . . .
. . . could be used to achieve the same results, the Madder plant just didn't seem to do as well as the other seedlings. Hmm, I may have forgotten to water it.
For work-in-progress posts with actual knitting content, please check out WIP Wednesday #36 at Tami's Amis!