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| saint john's wort plant dyed wool skeins, indigo and muslin hand stitched patchwork on studio wall |
The recipe says to simmer the flowers until the dye liquid turns deep red and then strain it. At first the liquid is a clear golden colour that looks red from above, but isn't.
I dyed three different pieces of wool along with skeins of about 2 oz each.
The first one is the darker piece in the photo below. Alum mordanted, simmered 15-20 minutes. (Jenny Dean advised that I would get a green colour).
The middle
piece of wool in photo above was UN mordanted wool, simmered one hour. (This was
supposed to turn red..but didn't. In fact, it looks greenish don't you
think?).
Finally, the pale piece was steeped overnight. It was mordanted with alum and cream of tarter first.
Even though I did not get the promised colours this time, I am pleased to be learning more about using plants from my local area to dye fabric and threads with. Experience is the best teacher.
Two books were my guide for Saint John's Wort...both by Jenny Dean.
Wild Color: revised and updated and A Heritage of Colour: Natural Dyes Past and Present
10 comments:
Beautiful shades from a pretty amazing plant. I've been using the same plant just a couple of weeks ago here in Yorkshire.
Yes, Claire. I visited your blog about a week ago and saw what you had been doing and that partly inspired me to work with Saint john's wort.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for sharing your experiments
if you are using only the flower heads then you're potentially wasting a lot of dye.
if you make an ecoprint from the top six inches of a flowering stalk you will see that the red dye [which is the one that will fix on protein fibres] is contained in little dots on the plant, quite thickly on the flowers but also on the leaves and stalks - decreasing in number as you go down the stalk.
so it really makes sense to use the top six inches of the plant rather than just the flower heads
bear in mind too that the water used to make up the dye will have an effect on colour as well
and you may find that putting mordanted wool into the same dyebath as unmordanted won't give you clear colours...as some of that mordant may be released back into the dyebath and affect the colour.
to get a deep cherry colour on wool i first of all drop in a piece of cotton [or other cellulose fibre] to pick up as much yellow as possible - then put in a wool sample. or put one of each into the dyepot, they'll each attract "their own" colour.
it's a splendid dye plant. endless fun and amusement :)
Thank you India
I have saved the tops of the plants without the flowers. I understand that they will still be OK even if dried. I want to try some more as am intrigued by getting red colour from this plant.
Lovely color, even if not red!
peekaboo - i see you in those lovely curtains. in those circles inside a square . . .
I have been extracting the red for a long time by only using the flowers, but i am using it in a oil, for herbal reasons and had decided to use onlt the leaves, since the flowers won't bloom in my garden and guess what? I got a lovel red oil after my months long wait! I am going to do some experiments with it in my cloth dying now, after taking a class with Lotta Helleberg this spring, and reading India's post! Thanx for the great information!
Hi. I got this incredibly beautiful maroon while hoping for lettuce green! But please tell me is it a fast colour?
Most experts say that the reds of St. John’s wort fade to beige over time.
India Flint might know if it’s possible to increase the fastness. Best of luck xx
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