Natural dyes

Just came across this site http://www.wildcolours.co.uk/index.html which may be of interest to some. She sells woad seed - I think someone asked about that recently.

BahamaMama

I bought some woad seeds this year but they spectacularly failed to germinate. I bought a couple of plants as a fall-back and they got eaten... now looking for blue snails Evil or Very Mad

sean

Isn't there a dye that's made from a type of snail? (Or am I muddling it up with cochineal which is made from insects?)

Jamanda

Purples used to be made from some sort of mollusc. Not sure if they're still extant.

mochyn

Thnaks for that, Marigold: really interesting looking site. it was me asking; not got any seeds yet...

Frewen Feltmaker

Seconded - I have dying modules this term Smile

Chez

BahamaMama wrote:

I bought some woad seeds this year but they spectacularly failed to germinate. I bought a couple of plants as a fall-back and they got eaten... now looking for blue snails Evil or Very Mad

Don't they take two years? Or am I confused about biannuals?

Mutton

They are biennials.

You use the leaves in the first year to get
1. Blue - through a complicated process, then take the used leaves and
2. Boil with alum and wool cloth to get a rather nice dusky pink.

In the second year you get yellow flowers and tons of seed and the leaves are no longer any good for dying.

The plant looks like the top of beetroot or weedy kale. If it does get going it is tough as old boots, massive tap root, produces enormous amount of seed and is an invasive weed.

My two experiences of growing it (easy) and getting blue from it (hard). First year only had a few plants and managed to get a tie dye look piece of cloth in the blue, and a rather nice dusky pink sample from the boiling. In the second year grew tons and did something wrong in the dye batch and got no blue at all.
For the pink, if you fail to extract all the blue then rather than pink you get a dun colour.

We grew some in an allotment along with very nice onions and shallots. Some B*** came along and nicked all the onions, left the shallots and pulled some leaves off the woad. Really, really hope they tried to eat them.

sally_in_wales

mochyn wrote:

Thnaks for that, Marigold: really interesting looking site. it was me asking; not got any seeds yet...

sorry, I hadnt quite forgotton but almost Embarassed

Stacey

I'm very interested in her page on plant mordants as I can't use natural dyes because the mordants are heavy metals.

marigold

Glad it's been of interest - I wasn't sure whether to post it, thinking everyone would already be experts in such things Smile

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