Welcome, this page is your shortcut to all natural dyeing posts. I hope you find ideas and inspiration here. Please do share your own experience and experiments.
A summer of solar dyeing for some timely inspiration
Today I want to share with you some lovely skeins of yarn dyed last summer, to both inspire myself and to inspire you if you’re tempted to give it a go! These are solar dyes from last year, possibly the easiest, lowest input approach to dyeing, although perhaps not the quickest. What you can also see from this selection is…
More sunny solar dyes from the kitchen and garden
As I sit here in temperatures hitting 40 degrees celsius, I thought I’d take a moment inside, in the shade to sit quietly and tell you about a some more glorious colours this summer of high temperatures and ‘burny’ sun have enabled me to create. Following the wonderful vibrant yellow I was able to create using yellow coreopsis and the…
Coreopsis: A vibrant start to a summer of solar dyeing
Sometimes I wonder ‘How many surprises can a single garden harbour?’ Other times I think I should know better than to ask!
Natural Plant Dyeing: Adding a fabulous new orange to the palette with Bidens
Towards the end of last year, as leaves tuned colour, the weather turned colder and frost threatened some tender dye plants, I began to plan some more dyeing experiments; a combination of trying to replicate previous colours and discover new ones. This potential for new colours comes as we explore further what plants will thrive in our clay soil, and…
Natural Dyeing with Hollyhocks: Stunning Results from The Black Knight
As the temperatures soar here I thought it was time to get going with solar dyeing and what better place to start than with my amazing hollyhocks. I love hollyhocks and have grown them for years so you can imagine my disappointment when the first few hollyhocks planted here failed to thrive. I had been kind to them giving them…
Low intensity natural plant dyeing in Winter: A simple, step by step, anyone can do it, guide
In my previous natural dyeing post I talked about using a new to me method of low intensity dyeing that used the heat generated by our woodburning stove and time. Today I thought I’d share a quick guide to this approach so you can easily see how you could adapt it to suit your circumstances, and integrate elements of it…
Natural Dyeing with Loquat leaves: When nature blows your mind
I took and enforced break from natural dyeing in the run up to the New Year because I had exhausted my stocks of undyed yarn to use as a base. So, it was with great anticipation that I returned to it in the New Year having ordered more yarn in the UK and having been given a totally new yarn…
A Winter of Natural Plant Dyeing Experiments: Striking Neons, a few cowpats and a surprise
It’s been a while since I posted regarding my natural dyeing experiments so I thought I’d do a round up of the various colours and shades that I’ve been cooking up over the winter months, in anticipation of, and to clear the decks for, the opportunities that spring will bring. Today I will stick to plant dyeing but will also…
My Advent Tavis: Update
Back at the beginning of December I stated my knitterly intention to spend the Advent period starting and, hopefully, finishing a Tavis Cowl from Susan Crawford’s latest publication Evolution, using the mini skeins I had dyed myself over the past year as part of my experiments in natural dyeing. So how do you think I did? Did my good intentions…
An Advent Project: The Tavis Cowl
This is the time of year when, if like me you want to get into a vaguely festive mood by watching knitting related Vlogmas* videos on You Tube, you’ll also see a range of yarny mini-skein advent calendars being opened. Not everyone is doing it this year and interestingly a lot of knitters have DIY advent calendars made up and…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Apricot Bark & Root
For a number of years we’ve tried a range of different approaches to try and save a very old and rather diseased and fungal apricot tree in the garden. The reason for this was largely sentimental rather than practical connecting us, via my parents-in-law, to the person who previously lived in this house and farmed the surrounding land on behalf…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Quince leaves
The mature quince tree we have in the garden is a continual source of joy and pleasure. It has sculptural presence that provides shade in the summer and the oh, so sweet smell of ripening quinces as autumn becomes winter. Whilst the fruits become jam, jelly or marmellata/membrillo/cheese, I was keen to see if the leaves would work as a…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Walnuts – What a Tease!
Remember those wizened walnuts that I spoke about in my Natural Dyeing introductory post? Well, I eventually got around to trying them out… and I’m butting back in at the beginning of this post because between drafting this post and publishing it, I’ve also experimented with walnut leaves, so I’ll talk about that here too. In sum… Walnuts – What…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Day Lillies
When I introduced this series of blog posts exploring my adventures in dyeing, I pledged to share with you my mistakes as well as my successes on the basis that we can learn from each others’ mistakes as well as our own. It’s therefore quite ironic that it was just before the launch of the ‘new look’ Ravlery which meant…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Pomegranate
After my high hopes for Dyer’s Camomile were somewhat dashed, I wavered as to whether pomegranate should be my next experiment. The colour swatches in Wild Colour by Jenny Dean seemed a little muddy and off putting compared to the vibrant yellows of Dyers Camomile which had attracted me, but I had failed to achieve. I think it was actually the…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Dyer’s Camomile
After a couple dyeing experiments using less conventional dyeplants, I thought it was time to reward myself with something a little more recognised… and to also put a stop to my beheading these wonderfully cheery flowers until I was sure they could deliver a colour that surpassed what I could achieve with garden waste. Dyer’s Camomile / Golden Marguerite or…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Old Man’s Beard or Travellers Joy
Old Man’s Beard, Traveller’s Joy or Clematis Vitalba was an iconic part of traditional British hedgerows when and where I grew up. As kids we loved those hairy fronds that appeared around about the same time as blackberries. As a gardener however, too much of the old boy in the hedgerow is a pest. I’m not alone in thinking this…
Natural Dyeing Experiments: Olive leaves
I’ve been keen to have a go at natural dyeing with plants that grow in the garden or in the neighbourhood since we moved here about this time last year. However, having spent a week of dog walks picking the heads off hedgerow flowers (dyers camomile), I began to realise just how many flowers it takes to do at least…
Embarking on new journeys without leaving home: Natural Dyeing
What could a jar of dried and wizened black walnuts possibly suggest about its owner? A desire to embark on a journey into Natural Dyeing Perhaps? Absolutely ! Natural Dyeing is something I’ve long wanted to try, hence the jar of wizened walnuts, a classic natural dye material. I fed this interest by taking a course with Elizabeth Johnston at Shetland Wool…