I have continued my experiments with Rebecca Burgess‘ ‘fall dye starter’ from Harvesting Color. I admit, it is barely autumn here and I’ve actually been trying this out through our summer… but this is a mere detail, I hope! I tried these three lobed leaves which someone told me were from a maple (I know little about maples), and birch leaves–why not?
I like the results a lot, but I won’t bother with birch again. I also collected oak leaves and wrapped them.
Finally, I made a special trip to what I was confident was a maple to collect these exquisite five-lobed leaves. I tried these on fabric cooked with tannin-bearing eucalyptus bark, which is not what Burgess recommends at all.
This produced hardly a smudge. So, I may have to review my ideas about tannin. Or on the other hand, I may have to reconsider my naive ideas about maples!
Local & Bespoke 