[Note:
Red addenda were added in 2015] After finding no persimmons left to harvest I googled acacia pods, which we
do not have in abundance. Learning that green and/or yellow dye might be possible, I gathered up
Lindheimer's Senna (Cassia), which I mistook for acacia. Then I picked out the least successful attempts from the round of
tan sheet dyeing and bundled them up in canning jars with used tea bags and boiling water. As with the first round of tan sheet dyeing, I'm trying a copper wire batch, a steel wire batch (haven't gotten steel wool yet, but I shook in some rusty nails for good measure), and an alum batch.
The results were awful ... both color and rank odor.
They are now waiting patiently alongside
Love Potion #9 (the first jar on the left) and color is most definitely happening.
having read about your acacia pod dyeing experiments I got all excited as we have an acacia as well, although I'd never noticed any pods before; so I googled our acacia and discovered it's a robinia pseudoacacia or Locust tree, not an acacia at all, it has the thorny branches hence the name...I'm kind of drifting off here.....so all this means I cannot dye with my 'acacia' pods and anyway I haven't found any pods on our tree, ever! I learn new stuff every day, honestly; I have noticed many of the fallen leaves are heart-shaped so maybe I can do something with those.....
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing the dye results over here
I'm loving your dyeing experiments and the way you're documenting them!
ReplyDeleteI'm in the UK so no acacia pods or persimmon!
Gill and Saskia -
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement ... after losing so much cochineal dye down the drain I'm trying not to let my hopes get too high.
The good news is, even when the results are less than spectacular the natural dyeing is just plain fun. And that makes the time spent well worthwhile ...
love the blue against the gold in the jar, alchemy!
ReplyDeleteI'm crossing my fingers that the gold doesn't turn out to be the fool's variety ...
Deletei think it's the Point, at least for a while, to love the process. it's all so accumulative, the
ReplyDeleteGood results and the Not So Much, more often than not, good...
i get the best results from the cast iron pot and the copper pot...letting them steep in those,
letting them oxidize sometimes.
So good to come here and Witness the Happenings
And now it's time to start using some of the cloth ... looking forward to seeing how you use Maria's cloths
Deleteyes. i am wondering too,....Maria's cloths....a lot will be just in the very small fragments that
ReplyDeletei work with...why it will last my lifetime, but some i just love as is and am thinking of making
a curtain with...we'll see.
Now I am humming Love Potion #9 which is a big improvement over what has been running in my head all day. (Cowboy Junkies Lonely Sinking Feeling--must be the grey windy weather that triggered that one!)
ReplyDeleteOkay, CJLSF is a new one on me, but from the sound of it that may be a good thing ;)
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