Dyeing with native plants

If not considering wash fastness, the colorful and ready to use natural dyes are fun to play itajime shibori. So much easier to see the symmetry than monochrome dyeing.

My woad plants are waking up and growing fast so I having been reading on dyeing with fresh woad leaves. The redox sensitivity of the dyer reminds me of one phenomenon I observed with goldenrod last year. There is  certain substance in goldenrod flowers that change color from yellow to green when oxidized. I can dye cotton fabric in reduced alkaline solution and when it's exposed to oxygen the fabric turns to a lovely apple green. I have seen textiles dyed with goldenrod ranging from green to golden to yellow. Different level of this green dye from different extraction methods could be the reason.

I dyed a couple pairs of merino long johns with poke berry juice without alum mordent. I must've heated the solution too much and the color had changed from magenta to red. The first pair dyed to a Terracotta tone and the exhaust gave a coral pink hue. I also threw a piece of silk chiffon in there but it didn't pick up the betalain pigments but a little anthocyanin instead. Unfortunately, the poke dyes aren't light fast and when I dried the clothes the side in sunlight has faded in just a few hours. I overdyed with tannin from smooth sumac leaf extract and that seemed to protect the color a bit. Anyway, the long John's are supposed to be underlayer so color uneveness isn't a problem.

ETA: I used 1.5 lbs of berries, 50g of citric acid and the weight of each pair of long John's is 130g, including elastics.

I made some lake pigments from both dried or fresh plant materials. Too bad I used up the pokeberries last year. The hot pink color is from madder. Black from false indigo and seafoam/light green/slate blue are from anthocyanins.

May Lotito wrote:I made some lake pigments from both dried or fresh plant materials. Too bad I used up the pokeberries last year. The hot pink color is from madder. Black from false indigo and seafoam/light green/slate blue are from anthocyanins.

I was very interested in trying this a few years ago.
I did some reading and thought about trying just madder but as with many of my projects it got pushed to the side.

I am so glad to see your results...beautiful!

Do you have a thread here explaining/documenting your processes?

It's not easy to get the color out of madder. With simple boiling I got coral to dusty rose. The bubble gum color is with acetic acid added. I don't have anything thing stronger and it takes rather harsh condition to release the pigments. Also I am mostly working with calcium instead of aluminum because I do everything just in the kitchen and sink. Aluminum gives vibrant colors but takes extra caution to deal with.

Right now I am not being quantitative, just eye balling and going fast to collect various colors. The principle is to have extra pigments to saturate the calcium then titrate with equal amount of carbonate. Here are some precipitated pigments with either Ca or Al.

Hot pink: madder roots
Orange: tickseed sunflower leaves
Yellow: potato flowers/pollens

thank you May!
You might have inspired me to give this a try.
I'm about to dig some madder root that is in the way of another project...older than the three year optimum so I don't know what to expect.

Madder roots are amazing for dyeing. I only get orange to apricot colors from madder on plant fibers but it helps stabilizing anthocyanin. I use it with purple corn husks to unlock a whole array of berry tones, my favorite colors! Here are some yucca fibers dyed with plants in my yard except madder. I don't know what to do with the fibers next, simply watching and brushing them is very satisfying already.