Posts Tagged ‘rose bush’
harvesting colour – rose hips
All summer, I watched the rose hips ‘developing’ on our bush and wondered if they would provide colour to my dye pot. The roses are pink in late spring and produce elliptical rose hips, bright orange.
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September 22, 2013 ‘red rose hips from pink roses’ Jane Tims
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Last week, I finally harvested the rose berries. I used scissors to avoid the springiness of the bush and the danger of getting smacked with those thorny branches.
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rose hips from my rose bush, September 2014
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The hips, boiled in water for a couple of hours, created a cloudy orange dye. And the alum-treated wool? A pale pinkish-brown.
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in background, alum-treated wool dyed with rose hips; in the foreground, spun wool dyed with lichen, beet leaves and alder bark
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I have so many shades of brown wool after all my dyeing adventures, this brings into question the idea of ‘best use’ – rose hips are valuable as a source of Vitamin C, can be used in jams, teas and other beverages, and have a potential use in reducing the pain of arthritis. And I apologize to the Chickadees who were so obviously upset as I picked the bright red berries.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
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