Tomato vines/leaves

Back to a few more plant dye tests...

Leaving the whole tomato plants to finish the job of ripening tomatoes, I thinned out some of the vines and leaves to dye with. I was surprised at the nice soft baby chick yellow produced with the tin mordant, also the soft green-slightly gray with the iron mordant, that is definitely a color I would like to have more of and with the size of the tomato plants I have, that will be able to happen.

I read later that I could have possibly produced a reddish dye out of the stems. I think they pulled their plant materials after the tomato season was over done producing red tomatoes. Did this may have something to do with what color of dye the stems will produce? I guess I'll have to get out the "lab" again a little later and test the information.

Pyracantha - Fire thorn

From my bus window I started noticing this shrub with bunches of bright orange berries. I didn't know what it was, but asked my plant expert at work. I had not read anything about the dyeing possibilities, but thought with those bright berries something had to happen. I went on a stealth gathering mission, collecting only the berries. Simmering them for and hour, letting it sit overnight and then straining and squeezing all the juice out. The color reminded me of a amber, dark beer color; not as strong a color as I thought. The alum samples came out a light orange color, maybe like cream of tomato soup with a little too much cream; the tin with alum made a nice golden tan color; the cooper with alum made an excellent light red-brown; and the iron again made nice neutral tan-grays.

Carrot tops

Using the tops from carrots for dye -- who knew? It's fun to see the plant parts used for dye, it generally isn't what you're growing the plant for, you don't use the "food" part, it's the leftover parts -- tops, stems and leaves that get simmered in the pot. The carrot tops produced an nice range of four distinct colors, yellow to dark green, a little to brassy. I liked the dark green (carrot tops with iron) the best, with some dark blues, browns and grays, it would be a nice addition to the pallet.

Yellow Onion

I'm not sure when we started collecting the dry onion skins, but we saved the outside part every time we cooked with onions. It was a fair amount for sample dyeing, but I still found myself raiding the onion bin at the local food store for extra dry pieces that had been cast aside.

I separated the yellow onion skins from the red/purple ones wondering if it would make a difference and as it turned out it did, not dramatically different, but the yellow onions were much brighter than the red onions. These were definitely vibrant colors; beautiful colors if you like the fall golds, oranges and browns, a range one could weave many a tapestry or functional item. The tin mordant brought out the brightest colors; this was the first dye batch which really brought out the difference between the prealumed wools and non prealumed wools, every variation was a distinct color.

The colors shown from right to left are: no mordant, prealum, prealum + tin, tin only, prealum + copper, copper only, prealum + iron, iron only.