It seems a long time since I was admiring the rather lovely green another dyer on Ravelry had achieved using peach leaves. She sounded a little apologetic when she explained that the leaves she used had fallen–but I was delighted, since that meant we were both Australians, experiencing autumn at the same time–and my peach tree was also dropping its leaves too. We moved here less than three years ago and planted about 8 fruit trees in the first autumn, so our trees are, as yet, on the small side and my leaf harvest was similarly small. Then I became distracted. It is now midwinter and those leaves have been hanging off a chair in the dyeing area in a calico bag since then. They are now quite dry.
Recently, I spent time bagging dried leaves, sweeping and cleaning up–and it seemed like the right time. Into the pot they went with some of the lovely rain that has fallen lately. It is always wonderful to be blessed with rain here. The leaves gave a rather soft and beautiful yellow, which you can just about see through the steam in this picture.
Now for the next step. I added about 50 ml of copper water. This jar sits in the garden along with my rusty iron water jar and a few other chemistry experiments.
There was nothing of the dramatic change in colour I observed with the Choisya Ternata bath, which made me wonder if I added more copper water to that bath and had simply forgotten quantity. I returned the heat to the dye pot and added another sample card.
I tried longer heating and more copper water–and the dye itself turned greenish–but the wool hardly moved from yellow. Perhaps fresh leaves next time?
Local & Bespoke 
You got some lovely colors, even if there is no strong green there.
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Thanks! I think so too. And from something so humble and accessible in the right season.
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I just want to leave pretty jars of copper water sitting around. 😀
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I enjoy that part too! There has been at least a year of admiring blueness prior to using it for dyeing 🙂
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I love the warm yellow you got from cold bath. How long did you keep the yarns in the bath to get that color?
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Thanks! I heated the bath to get that yellow. Half an hour with the leaves and half an hour more with the sample and the leaves.
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oooh…since a raccoon (presumed) made off with the 30 peaches on my little tree (after a squirrel had chewed on 8 previously), perhaps I can still get something from it after all? They left me one peach, which was delicious. Somehow made it worse….(I had tied the 30 in little pouches of row cover fabric. The bugger(s) managed to steal them out of those!)
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Some animals are so bad at sharing! (Though clearly humans are the worst globally). How cunning of them! We had just one apple on our dwarf apple tree this year, and decided ‘we’ll pick it tomorrow’. We were overheard, by a rat I assume, and next day there was half an apple!
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Never say that! It’s a guarantee for having it stolen/eaten! My next attempt: nylon knee-high stockings over the tomatoes…other gardeners in the area swear by it. Makes for interesting visuals in any case.
: )
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