Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The new colour season has started...



Different herbal dye vats are fermenting right now.
I've put them in my living room next to the wood burner because it's still chilly outside.

dandelion flowers, birch leaves, dock roots, eucalyptus leaves, woad flowers
all from my garden

I won't show pictures of the fermenting vats, instead some pictures of my place:



I can assure you that there are enough dandelions to share with the bees
picture is taken from my neighbor's meadow



Chinese rhubarb, which I sometimes use in the dyeing process



Woad flowers and forget-me-not's, such a lovely sight !
While the woad leaves are harvested the first year for the most divine blues, 
the flowers of the following year are great for a yellow dye 



I haven't tried to dye with Valerian yet, 
I will give it a try this summer
my cat, on the other hand, gets high from the roots



A view of the back yard with two oaks, 
every year a few dead branches give me some lichen 
In the back, the vegetable garden



a small herbal dye garden in the front yard, where motherplants grow:
a few woads, madder, dyer's chamomile, dyer's broom, pomegranate 
and seedlings of orange cosmos, marigold, pokeweed, St Johns wort, 
coreopsis, weld and others




a small pond with one of my favorites, the yellow iris which roots gives a blue-grey dye
I will do some fabric printing tests with the iron rich soil on the bottom of this pond



a little well hidden in the back yard
which I have named
Urdarbrunnr
the well of Urd


:)

I'm going to be more of a dyer than a designer this year
I hope you still will follow me and my dye-experiments on this blog
Comments are always welcome
Thank you for visiting

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