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| natural dyed scarves |
The morning sun has already chased the last of the dew from the corners of my garden as I slip outside and reach for my Blundstones. This March day promises to be warm and dry, and I have much to do outdoors before the heat intensifies. “Tiny”, my son’s Jack Russell, barks frenetically as I stuff some old supermarket bags into my pockets – she knows that when my farm boots go on, adventures are in the offing. She is joined by my daughter’s more staid West Highland Terrier as we cut through the vegetable garden, under the quince tree groaning with its furred and fragrant load, and into the open sheep paddock. “Tiny” barks excitedly as she runs ahead and the sheep turn to give her baleful stares before retreating to a safer distance. From the roadside hedge I hear the unmistakeable cho-cho-wee of a grey shrike-thrush calling to its mate and my mind trickles back to the joy of watching them raise two broods over summer in a niche of our mud-brick-walled house. As we near the natural bushland on the perimeter of the property Tiny’s exuberance puts up a pair of pippets from the dry grass and they scramble and leap into the air in a whirring panic. The dogs vanish through the sagging wire fence into the dense tree-cover beyond as, temporarily dazzled by the change in light, I gingerly cross the threshold into cool, flickering shadows.
The dogs are only a memory now; snuffling their way into far-off wombat holes and dancing in search of lizards and snakes, they are all but lost to me. I skirt around a large pine tree and remember how deliciously its needles coloured a piece of my felt in gentle shades of olive and sand. Purposefully I duck under some black wattles which I remember gathering many years ago to produce a dark brown skein of knitting wool. They are prolific here in this young regrowth, jostling each other for shoulder-room but outstripped by the sturdier blackwoods which are badged with lichen. I must dye again with this lichen: Lichen umbilicaria – when soaked in ammonia and water it releases a strong purple dye to produce shades ranging from pink and lavender to plum. I seldom work in these shades, but the colours are so riotous and unexpected that the thrill of looking in the dye-pot is all the reward needed.
Today, however, I head straight for the native cherry trees – alias Cherry Ballart (Exocarpus Cupressiformus). Their fine, pendulous branchlets range from olive green to a luminous lime in their new growth, reminiscent of the beautiful green shades it bequeaths us in the dye-pot. This is my target plant this morning, and I fill my two shopping bags to overflowing with the stripped needles, taking care to spread my collecting across a few different specimens. Reluctantly I retrace my steps towards the fence; further exploration would be fun, but the dye-pot calls.
As I push my bundles through the wire I hear the dogs return. Panting and tongue-lolling they grin as they rejoin me for the dash back to the house. Impatiently they stop at regular intervals until I catch up, then they surge ahead once more while I contemplate my dye-pot. My felt, already pre-mordanted in alum (aluminium sulphate) is curing in a plastic bag. I run through my sketchy plans for this piece of work – a panelled jacket, 3 panels of which will be resist-dyed in green using modern hardware items to create the impressions. I smile to think of my horde of interesting metal washers, air-conditioning vents, clips and clamps. The ancient Japanese shibori artists little knew how their art would be adapted! In homage to their work, however, I plan to dye the contrasting coat panels using traditional shibori techniques, hoping to achieve a marriage of the old and the new. As I enter the house garden, my mind slips off to a contemplation of the pomegranates ripening on the bush before me. The rosy skins are beginning to split on the larger fruit, exposing jewelled beads of intense red. They are almost ready to eat, and I have read that their skins produce a good, fast dye - this year I will boil up their skins to see what mystery colours they can produce!
Once inside I chop my cherry ballart into the dye pot, cover it with water and set it to simmer for 45 minutes or so. This allows me to pause for a cup of tea (also an excellent natural dye) and then it’s a quick scoop-out of the leaves and in with the felt. In about 40 minutes I have my first colour – a slightly lime tinted yellow. This will be a perfect background for my resist dyeing. After removing the felt, I apply my first resists – using as many of the washers and hardware thingy-bits (I don’t know what they are called – they just look useful!) as I can clamp onto the pieces. Then it’s back to the dye-pot, this time to simmer for 10 minutes with a teaspoon of copper sulphate added. Untying the bundles is the best part – and I am pleased with the marks I have made and the bright lime of the second colour. The next stage is to re-clamp the pieces with different hardware thingy-bits and put it all back in the pot with a teaspoon of iron sulphate for a final 10 minutes. Out of the pot…untie it…and wow! Third colour is a deep olive. The pieces are just what I want!
For my contrasting panels I want a rich, chocolate brown – and walnut hulls produce the perfect colour. Having no walnut trees of my own, I have arranged to collect some hulls from a friend’s tree, but as it is chestnut gathering time on her farm, I know a visit won’t just entail picking up walnut hulls!
The sun beats hotly on my shoulders as I walk down the hill to join my friend in the chestnut orchard. She has raked the nuts into piles and it is pleasant to sit under the broad, leafy trees and twist the fierce chestnut-porcupines apart. We fill two large buckets with plump nuts while chatting, and then I am free to examine the walnut tree. Alas, the season is later than I thought, and although there have been many nuts falling, rodents of various descriptions have plainly been coveting the soft hulls too. Together with my friend I half-fill my trusty supermarket bag with what we can find under the tree (staining our hands black in the process!) and I prepare to leave. English ivy cascades over the garden wall next to my car, and remembering my unfilled supermarket bag, I stop to gather a load of leaves. These will be my dye experiment tomorrow!
Back home I transfer my black, earth-smelling hulls to a bucket, cover them with water and leave them to soak for three days or so. Their odour is of leaf-mould from a primeval forest floor, I muse…must be either an ancestral memory or an over-active imagination! I have already dyed my felt with blue-gum leaves to produce a background colour of light tan. The next few days will be spent in applying stitched and tied shibori resists to these pieces in the traditional Japanese manner before boiling up the walnut hulls and adding them to the water. Sadly the quantity of hulls is only about half what I needed, so I will likely get a mid-brown rather than the richer brown I had envisaged – but that is the joys of natural dyeing – you never get exactly what you expect!
So, if life seems a little hectic and predictable to you, take a ‘leaf’ out of my book and experiment with natural dyes on your felt – you will be surprised.
P.S. The ivy leaves were a great success – they yielded gold, mid-olive and dark olive!
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| Detail of the finished felted jacket |
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