Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Dyeing To Try..


Kind and generous Mona
of JarDarMama
has encouraged me to try some
natural dyeing.
I wish that I could put up a link here
for both of her gorgeous blogs,
but it is not happening.
I encourage all to go to her sites.
Mona is a gifted artist, a steward of this earth,
and a loving, generous woman.
Here is my first attempt.
Dyed with Japanese Maple leaves...
I threw some rusty stuff in a big jar,
let it set for a few days, and then put maple leaves
in the jar and stuffed in the "scarfish" piece of cloth.
I thought that the resulting color
would reflect more of the red.
Not...but what a joy to try,
and what a mystery to see at the end.
It is definitely more of a greenish gray,
but still such a lovely color.
Thanks, Mona for your inspiration.



I hope to do some more in the coming weeks.
Thank you, dear Mona
for your encouragement and kindness to me.


best, e.

5 comments:

Susan T said...

The colour is very NOW, very pretty and Farrow and Ballish.

Jackie said...

It's a very lovely and soft color! How fun that you are trying something new!

Ginnie said...

Sounds like fun. Have you ever died anything using beets? I used to fool around with that a lot in my "hippy" days.

Mona said...

Dear Ellen, you scarf is so lovely!! I believe natural dyed colours are always in! One of the fun things about natural dyeing is, that you can dye the same items again (and again) for renewal, change or more depths in colour(s). The reason the red from the maple turned greyish is the iron from the nails. Since you have an abundance of maple, I think you could have much fun dyeing a wide range of colours/nuances from them - with different kind of mordants - or using different kind of pots for cooking (aluminium, copper, iron)
And thank you so much for your warmhearted words - I'm not sure I really deserve them - but they sure made my day! Thank YOU, dear Ellen!!

Annie Cholewa said...

That is so *very* pretty.

You are going to have so much fun trying different plants and mordants. Nothing beats natural dyes. I just used the last of the walnut husks I was given last autumn to dye some woollen yarn.