nichepoetryandprose

The final manuscript of poetry from my ‘harvesting colour’ project is due at the end of October.  However, I don’t think these adventures with using natural dyes are ending.  I have enjoyed this project so much and I am so proud of my basket of home-dyed, hand spun yarns.

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some of my balls of hand dyed wool

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I took a step towards next year’s batch of yarn by thinking about starting a dyer’s garden  (so many of the interesting plants I have read about are not available locally).  I would love to try growing some of those traditional medieval-sounding plants in my dyeing.  Weld, Woad and Woadwaxen – don’t they sound almost magical?  Most of the plants used through the ages for dyeing have the species name of tinctoria, tinctorius, tinctorium, or tinctorum (from the Latin tingo, tingere – to dip, to soak, to dye).

Examples of plants with ‘Dyer’s’ in the common name or ‘tinct‘ in the species name are:

• Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) – flowers give pink or yellow
• Dyer’s Alkanet (Alkanna tinctoria (L.) Tausch) – roots give purple-grey
• Dyer’s Chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria L.) – flowers or leaves give a greeny-yellow
• Dyer’s Mulberry, Fustic (Chlorophora tinctoria (L.) Gaudich.) – wood gives a greeny-yellow
• Dyer’s Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt.) – flowers give an orange or brown
• Dyer’s Greenwood, Woadwaxen (Genista tinctoria L.) – plant tops give a pale green or yellow
• Dyer’s Woad, Woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) – leaves give blue
• Weld or Dyer’s Rocket (Reseda luteola L.) – plants tops give yellow
• Madder (Rubia tinctorum L.) – roots give red
• Dyer’s Knotweed, Japanese Indigo (Polygonum tinctorium Aiton) – leaves give blue

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To begin with, I sent to Richters Herb Specialists ( https://www.richters.com/ ) in Goodwood, Ontario for Weld and Woad.  And I have Rita Buchanan’s book A Dyer’s Garden to help me get the best results.

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packets of seed for planting next spring

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Well, the seeds have now arrived.  Next spring I’ll find a sheltered spot with the right conditions and try to grow these two.  I listen to the tiny seeds shaking in their packets and wish for May.

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Copyright  2014  Jane Tims