Category Archives: Dye Plants

June 24, 2013 · 10:54 am

Kurrajong

Kurrajong trees (Brachychiton spp) are in fruit in the parklands and suburbs.  They are native to Australia, but not my part of it.

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The seeds are edible when roasted, but the fact that they come nestled into their little boat-shaped pods in a bed of irritating hairs puts a lot of people off (I’m one of those people)!

We went for a run by Victoria Park Racecourse a few weeks back, and there were many. Some with glorious lichen-covered trunks.

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Here is the whole tree…

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And evidence that it is not on the verge of becoming a world-renowned dye plant.  In this image you can see my test piece, with half the leaves removed from it.  The smudges of colour you see have transferred through from other samples in the same bundle.  Nothing from the kurrajong leaves my beady eye could detect.

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June 21, 2013 · 12:55 pm

Eucalyptus Nicholii

I finally found E Nicholii, growing in Botanic Park. My beady eyes have been searching the suburbs of my city for this tree as I ride past, to no avail until now.

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This is such a finely-leaved tree!  Perhaps I have failed to identify it if I have seen one fully grown, mistaking it for another kind of tree altogether.  I had one growing in a pot but it suffered too much through summer. It is also the only tree I have ever seen as the subject of a public notice at Guild, where I once saw a hand lettered note asking if anyone could supply E Nicholii leaves for a dyer. My friend’s godmother–another dyer–who lives in NSW, recommended E Nicholii as her favourite dye plant.  These are some of the reasons I was trying to grow it in a pot.  I have given that up and we have a tiny specimen growing in the corner of the back yard.  And now–the reason why people are so keen!  I think this print is sensational.

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See that big black splodge?  I have wondered why I get one of these once in a while (and needless to say I have had a few theories).  Just recently the penny dropped.  Or should I say, the washer dropped–because that is what actually happened.  One of my dye pots has a glass lid with a knob screwed into the centre of it. All these eucalypt dye baths have eaten away at the metal of the screw and washers.  One washer recently fell off altogether, as the hole in it simply had been made too large for it to stay in position.  So… there has been an inadvertent contribution of iron to some of my dye baths, and some unintended black smudges where iron water drips down onto my bundles from above–since this lid is convex, I have preferred it when I have large bundles in the pot.  Aha!  Another mystery solved.  This may explain some of my surprise dye bath outcomes, too…

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June 20, 2013 · 1:56 pm

Dyeing in Katoomba–and some local-to-Katoomba eucalypt species

Just recently I had a short holiday in Katoomba (New South Wales).  I spent part of a day doing some dyeing with a group of friends who meet as a textile group.  One of my dear friends did a lovely job of organising a space to meet.  The group had a lot of great skills–with artists, a chemist, bush regenerators, plant identifiers and a librarian among them.  They had read and been inspired by Eco-Colour—India Flint‘s fabulous book on natural dyeing in which she sets out the eco-print process.  But they had not had a great deal of success and some had formed the view that we have special trees in South Australia.  Of course, we do have special trees in SA, and so do they in NSW!  I tried to explain that it was far more likely a question of species than state boundary…

I love the stages in this process of setting up and bundling…

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Cooking…  we ran one pot with vinegar, one with iron and one with onion skins (the orange bundles have spent time in the onion skin bath and then been moved to a different pot).

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And then the big reveal!  It reminds me of that fantastic Judy Horacek cartoon… which by coincidence my friends have up at their place in Katoomba.  Please follow the link to be introduced to a wonderful Australian cartoonist–and to see the cartoon!  E Scoparia and E Cinerea on wool:

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With so much expertise–and because my wise and sweetheart friends who were hosting our holiday as well as dye day had been out collecting and applying plant knowledge–we were able to try out some local species.  These samples are all on silk noil scraps, and have all been in hot water for at least an hour–just to test their potential really.

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We couldn’t resist trying Indigofera Australis even though it didn’t seem likely a hot process would be ideal for an indigo-bearing plant.  It wasn’t, leaving almost no mark except when dipped in an iron modifier.  Here it is, before and after.  The yellowy-greenish tinge is an effect of photography indoors.  Sorry about that part.

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E Radiata, the Narrow-Leaved Peppermint:

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One of the especially beloved and tall local species is E Oreades, the Blue Mountains Ash–a truly local-to-Katoomba tree:

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And finally, E Pulverulenta, the Silver-leaved Mountain Gum, is a vulnerable species in the local area.  As a result, people who want to make sure it lives on are planting it in towns, and this sample came from a street tree.  Dyers will now have an additional reason to support the conservation effort!

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A big, big thanks to my Katoomba friends, and to the textile group for having me!

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June 12, 2013 · 9:38 am

Plum Pine 2: Mordant and Modifiers

Having had success with a test dyebath, I made a point of returning to Botanic Park to collect more fruit on weekend, en route to celebrating World Wide Knit in Public Day.  I dyed some grey corriedale locks in my test bath and they went from grey to a dull brownish shade, so I opted for superwash + alum and silk as the most likely candidates for success. I mordanted sock yarn of antiquity (picked up at a garage sale) and prepared another dyebath.  I regard sock yarn as a no risk option.  If I knit socks for a friend, I can make an open offer to re-dye at any point they fade to an unacceptable shade (and I can ask how they’re faring under normal wear and washing).

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The dye bath looked fantastic.

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I ran two baths with this fruit, because the first one produced purple on my alum mordanted skeins of sock yarn (wool-nylon).  I pulled it out of the bath after dark and in artificial light it looked quite brown. So I dropped the skeins back in the bath for the night and put test samples into an iron bath and a vinegar bath. Next morning the sock yarn was purple! The exhaust dyebath was a lighter and browner shade of mauve.  I apologise for these photos but it’s winter here and sunlight is in short supply.

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My tiny skeins of silk thread came out various shades of rose pink through to magenta too… and I have embarked on an embroidery project, so that was exciting.  The shades on the right are both using vinegar in the dyebath.

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The modifiers were interesting: the wool+alum strand was noticeably more purple with vinegar and noticeably more brown/grey with iron, which is, I think, about what should be expected.  So… a promising beginning to experiments with a new dye plant–but with no sense yet of how washfast or lightfast it might be.

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June 11, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Plum pine 1

Podocarpus elatus is fruiting in Botanic Park.  I rode past recently with my beady eyes alert, looking for this tree.  I’ve investigated its qualities previously and discovered the fruit is edible.  And today, there they were, lying on the ground in plenty.  They offer plenty of weirdness by regular fruit standards, since the seed is outside the fruit.  One of the less common forms of fruit in my limited experience!  Here they are on the tree…

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And on the ground below.

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This is the tree itself.  It is native to Australia, but it is a rainforest tree.  For those who don’t know…  I am not living anywhere near a rainforest.  South Australia is generously described as having a Mediterranean climate.  Those less generous just call it a desert, and a fair amount of the state answers that description.

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I tried eating one of the fruits and it was just as I remembered it from last time: subtle is the most I could say about the flavour, and the word ‘mucilaginous’ came to mind immediately.  If there is a commercial application for this fruit perhaps it would be… lubricant.  Or perhaps it could be the gumbo of Australian bush food desserts.  I tried leaf prints… but nothing too exciting came of it.

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I twisted the seeds off the fruit and soaked the fruit overnight–pitting plums has never been so simple.  No change in the colour of the water.  I cooked them for almost an hour–water a deep plum colour by now–and then threw in a  sample card and some silk thread.  Soon after that, the alum mordanted wool looked almost blue, and the other fibres (cotton, silk, wool) looked pink.  After about an hour of heat, the alum mordanted wool was deep grey-blue, the wool was deep rose-pink and the other fibres looked paler shades of pink.

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Needless to say, this outcome made me think I should go back to that tree 🙂

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June 10, 2013 · 5:28 pm

Paxillus Involutus

We have some very impressive fungi coming up in our front garden.

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Unbelievably, one of our neighbours is a mycologist who was only too happy to tell me what they are.  Paxillus Involutus, also known as ‘Poison Pax’.  I readily agreed not to include them in dinner! These fungi are not native to Australia but have been inadvertently introduced.  We initially thought their appearance in the root zone of a silver birch at our place meant the birch might not live long.  It turns out that these fungi serve the plant and form a relationship with it which is of benefit to the tree.

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I’ve wandered the interwebs looking for information and discovered a range of different perspectives on what colour these fungi can give in dyeing, with some suggesting a shade of beige–Riihivilla says they are ‘not worth picking most of the time’– while other dyers suggest they give pinkish and greenish browns.  None of it sounds really thrilling, but my opportunities for sustainably dyeing with fungi have been non existent so far.  So…  I consulted Karen Casselman’s Craft of the Dyer, picked a specimen, tore it up and cooked it for an hour.  Then, in with my test sample.  I kept that hot for a further hour.  It doesn’t really surprise me that Riihivilla is right about this … but it was so exciting to have this fungus in my own yard, I had to try it out.

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Since I’m talking fungi, here are some I came across walking through Botanic Park on a completely different dye mission on the weekend.  I left them exactly as I found them.

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On the whole, the best thing for a fungi ignoramus to do, I believe, except when acting on expert advice.

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June 4, 2013 · 4:35 pm

Unidentified Eucalypt Buds of Wonder

I have seen this Eucalypt before, and dyed with it before. At most, I have had apricot on silk from the leaves.

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Sadly, I can tell when I am looking at the same species (I think) but have not been able to identify the species.  If any reader knows the species, I’d be glad of your advice.  The bark is a lovely rough tan.

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Then I found this one in full bud and beginning to flower, in early June.

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I decided to try again and got the same result: the leaves barely make a mark, but oh my!  The buds!

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May 30, 2013 · 7:58 am

Eucalyptus Caesia

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My parents came around one weekend as autumn was beginning and brought gifts from their garden: quince, guavas, mandarins, and these lovely flowers from their front yard. Eucalyptus Caesia ‘Silver Princess’.

It has been quite a season. We have made an incredible amount of pesto from our basil plants and had enough to share as well.  The final pesto fest was last weekend, shared gleefully with a friend who is a wonderful cook. We also made a walnut and pomegranate molasses dip of wonder, a rice pudding flavoured with mastic and orange flower water and some fiendishly rich and delectable mastic and rosewater icecream.  Finally, she read poetry.  Exquisite!

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Once the flowers wilted, into the pot the leaves went.  Nothing too exciting came out, which has been my experience in the past.  However, the lovely weeping habit, young white bark, minnirichi bark on the trunk (the bark peels in vertical strips in a rather amazing way) and the spectacular flowers… are probably enough delights for one plant to provide.

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May 26, 2013 · 7:41 pm

Fermentation Indigo Vat… not this time…

On the first day of the new year, I started up a fermentation indigo vat, following Rebecca Burgess’ recipe in Harvesting Color.  I’d had the ingredients waiting for some time but finally decided to gather my courage and give it a try.  I have previously used the hydrosulphite vat with success, but this was my first time trying a fermentation method.  I thought setting this vat up in the heat of an Australian summer was a good application of the principle that you should do those processes which work with the seasons and not against them.

We had a heat wave in January where the temperature went up to 45C during the day, but it was blessedly cooler at night. I stirred every day.  No sign of a coppery sheen.  In February, we had another hot spell where the temperature went up to 38C during the day and stayed well above 20C at night.  I wondered if that was a coppery sheen, or my imagination.  On the days I noticed it, I was too busy to try dyeing.

Well.  Here it is, May and the vat never became active in summer and won’t now that winter is on its way.  So the other week my friend wanted to indigo dye a birthday surprise item, and what with the need for it to be a surprise, the difficulty of laying in hydrosulphite and the volume of other things to do, by the time we got the vat happening, it was after dark.  What I am saying is, these pictures are not great!

We used about half of my fermentation dye bath and added hydrosulphite. With the help of a nice woollen blanket (sold to me as a dog blanket due to what must have been a vey sad felting episode in its previous home) for insulation, and of course big red protective gloves… we got started and had that indigo magic in spite of the months the vat has lain untended.  In goes the white fabric…

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Exposure to the air on the clothesline

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After a good rinse!

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Next summer, I can see I’ll have to do better to get fermentation happening.  Better focus, more effort at maintaining temperature, and perhaps some feeding and maintenance.

For those who have been worried, our caterpillars have apparently changed into moths and moved on, and the madder is recovering.

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May 22, 2013 · 12:02 pm

Lillypilly fruit

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Lillypillies are in fruit around my suburb.  They are the fruit of a large, glossy-leaved forest tree and they stain the footpath in a most impressive and promising manner.  This one is Szygium Smithii (but this is a family of trees some of which are widely grown ornamentally in Australia).  The fruit is edible, but in the case of this species, unexciting in terms of flavour, with a crisp texture and a fairly large seed inside.  On the dye front…  I did not find this an exciting outcome.  Fawn on silk (the card on the right), brown on wool with alum and tan on unmordanted wool.  I think I’ll stick with cooking lillypillies and admiring their enormousness and the spectacle of so much fruit!

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