Musing number 1: Where one finds the author with her hands in the dyepot

I think that the very first time I used a natural dye was in 1975. It was an experiment with privet berries picked at an old homestead. A couple of friends and I boiled the berries up with some wool, and I assume we must have used a few different mordants, although I don't recall how we learned to do this; I remember greens, blues, and a general sense of awe and amazement. These colours would not have been fast, but it was a spectacular place to start. An aspect of my world was transformed; I was a dyer, right from that moment, with everything to learn. I bought a book---Dyes From Plants by Seonid Robertson---this was a lucky choice and I would still recommend it, if you can find a copy---and I was on my way.
My next dye adventure was with elderberries; I didn't know then that most berries don't make good dyes, and I remember those samples actually fading in the dark drawer they were stored in. After that I tried mahonia roots, and then whole plants, and the resulting khaki and yellow, common colours in the natural palette, delighted me. I remember the sense of magic and alchemy that I experienced then, and indeed it has never gone away.
This was in the mid-seventies, a time when the back-to-the-land movement was in full swing; a lot people accumulated looms, spinning wheels, and dyepots full of onion skins. However after the creation of a few hats and vests, many of them lumpy, reeking of lanolin, and dyed an indifferent yellow, much of this equipment was quietly retired to attics, sheds, and barn lofts. I was hooked, however. Around that time somebody gave me a  Salish spinning wheel head, and a friend built the wheel for me (unbeknownst to him he was copying a design that was a reject, and this wheel had a built-in Klunk! noise that was my background music for about 30 years). After taking a weaving course in Cherryville, BC, I bought a 45 inch Cherryville loom, (which I still use) although I lived in a log cabin so tiny that when I wanted to pull the loom out from the wall so that I could weave, I had to put my armchair out in the snow. I mostly used my own handspun and naturally dyed yarn for weaving, right from the start, and I still do.
Within a year I had done a lot of dyeing, although I still had to learn something about patience, especially where mordanting was concerned. Occasionally I see one of those old blankets, and they are pretty faded now. Patience I have acquired, and a broader knowledge of sources for colour---plants, flowers, roots, bark, lichens, mushrooms and all the others. Today I can look around the room and decide what I would use to dye every colour that I see. And yet, there is the vast unexplored all around me. I am looking out the window now, at all the plants, right outside my door, that I have yet to try for colour. Probably they mostly make yellow, but  I will never know until I make that dyebath; and this really is how I learn.

musing number 2:

  The dyers garden really achieves its fullest delight in August; now the plants and flowers we have been anticipating all of the growing year are ready for the dyepot, and many wayside plants~goldenrod, tansy, chicory~ are promising a range of beautiful colours as well. In the garden, marigolds, cosmos, and dahlias abound and towering over all are the sunflowers. I have Mammoth Russian, the big old-fashioned one that has long been planted for seeds, as well as shaggy Teddy Bear, a mid-height double. Both give chartreuse with an alum mordant; baking soda added to the bath turns the colour to a slightly grassier green, which is also very attractive. The undisputed queen of the summer dye-flowers is the dahlia. All varieties and colours may be harvested for colour  with the exception of whites and pale yellows, and with alum all will give a warm orange-yellow (with the curious exception of purple-and-white bi colours, which give a pleasant slightly greyed green)  Dahlia colour is quite PH sensitive, and a little baking soda added to the bath turns the colour to a bright vibrant orange. Marigolds give a range of yellows, golds and warm browns depending on the mordants used, and cosmos are also on the gold-orange side (make sure that you plant a yellow, orange or red cosmos). Bright Lights mix works well. The pink Sensation cosmos don't produce a dye.
Most late-summer wayside plants will give a variety of yellows, but what yellows! The most beautiful of these is probably goldenrod, bright and intense. Tansy is also lovely, and with a little baking soda added to the bath will turn a deeper gold. This really is the time for experimentation; mordant some extra yarn and try using tomato plants, carrot-tops, squash vines, the hops that are attempting to choke the blueberry bushes ---you may get a nice red-brown with these--- and anything else that catches your eye. This abundance will soon be gone for another year, and our thoughts will turn to the mushrooms, barks, leaves, and nuts that decorate the dyers autumn

musing number 3:

As dyers we often turn to inspiring reference works, from ancient to traditional to modern. We all have our favourite books---my very first dye book was 'Dyes From Plants' by Seonaid Robertson, which was written in 1973 and is long out of print. This book is a well written, informative and accurate; I couldn't have asked for a better beginning, although she does include recipes for berries, and no berry gives a fast dye that I am aware of, with the possible exception of snowberries. Although there have, of course, always been people dedicated to this art, natural dyeing was essentially being re-invented in the seventies, by the back-to-the-land movement. A certain amount of questionable information was probably to be expected, however there is considerably less excuse for it now, and I tend to avoid the books that give recipes for berries, red cabbage, beets and so on, even if given a fastness rating of 'fair'or 'poor'. Anything that is going to fade badly really isn't worth using, with the exception---more on this in a minute---of the orchil and cudbear  lichens.
  Certain untruths about natural dyes are very tenacious. This happens, probably, because some authors don't do their homework, that is, they don't test all their recipes but instead rely upon the work of other dyers, who in their turn have done the same---the infamous 'dandelion roots give magenta' myth is a prime example. Even dyers who have tested dandelion roots extensively have a very hard time believing the evidence of their own work, and will state that dandelion roots DO produce magenta, in Scotland, although not here. Su Grierson, a Scottish dyer and author of the wonderful, well researched book “The Colour Cauldron”, tells us that this is in fact, not the case, and she also offers a reasonable explanation of how this story may have originated. Nevertheless, you may expect to see the dandelion/magenta statement in books yet to be written.
The issue of light-fastness is also open to question; some dye books don't address it at all, others tend to an optimism that I cannot always share; your own experience will be the key here. It is simple to test for light fastness: wrap some yarn around a card, cover one side, and place the card, uncovered side up, in a sunny window. You can expect almost any dye (including chemical ones) to fade somewhat in these conditions, the question is, how much, and in what length of time
The exception that I make when it comes to dyes that are not light fast are the lichens that yield reds and purples when macerated in ammonia. The colours are so beautiful that it is worth the experiment, but these yarns do need to be kept in the shade. I will devote an article to this process in the near future.

The actual colour produced by dyestuffs varies from dyer to dyer and from dyepot to dyepot, however some of the results claimed by certain authors strike me as being improbable---I have never produced red-brown from tomato vines, for example, or burgundy from pulmonaria lichens, or pumpkin orange from dock seeds. Nettles, to mention a very common dye plant, always give me a yellow-green with an alum mordant, but some writers apparently get grey, yellow, bright green or beige.
Books are wonderful tools, I love my dyebooks, but there is nothing like experience and by the way I would love to hear about your discoveries, so please send me an email at Brigid Weiler

Black walnut hulls make beautiful colours and are satisfying to use. They do not require a mordant and create a range of rich chocolaty browns.
I gather the nuts when they have fallen from the trees and are still green, or just turning brown. One large tree will produce enough walnuts to dye sweaters for everybody in your entire town. Twenty nuts are enough to dye  4 ounces of wool with a rich saturated colour.  You can remove the hulls or use them whole, the nut with the hull attached.
To make the bath, soak the whole nuts or hulls for a couple of days. When ready to dye, place everything, including soaking water,  into a roomy stainless steel or enamel pot. You will need  1 gallon of liquid per four ounces of wool, but it is okay to have more.
(the quantity of water in a dye bath doesn't affect the final colour, but it is important to have enough for the wool to move freely).
Bring to a boil, and boil for about an hour. Cool the bath to lukewarm, strain, and add clean, thoroughly wetted wool. Heat this up slowly and simmer for one hour. While the wool simmers in the dye bath, occasionally push the wool gently down into the dye bath, do not stir the wool. Leave the wool in the bath until it is cool, or leave it overnight, then rinse the wool thoroughly, and wash it; any mild soap will do. A final rinse completes this project. It is a good idea to wear rubber gloves and protect working surfaces, as black walnuts stain everything they touch. In my experience they neither dry nor freeze particularly well, so use them fresh; the nuts will keep for a couple of weeks outside or in a cool place and still retain their potency , (the squirrels stole most of mine out of the shed this fall).

Enjoy this rewarding dye .

From Wikipedia: Black walnut drupes contain juglone , plumbagin (yellow quinone pigments), and tannin . The tannins present in walnuts act as a mordant aiding in the dyeing process.

Lobaria pulmonaria, also known as lungwort, is a lichen that grows on a variety of trees, both coniferous and deciduous. In our area (southern BC coast), it favours mature broad-leaved maples and old apple trees. On the west coast of Vancouver Island I have seen it on spruce. Lobaria Pulmonaria is to be found in much of North America and Europe, as well as parts of Africa and Asia.

It is considered to be endangered over some of its habitat as it is particularly sensitive to air pollution; however where the air is clean Lungwort is abundant and fast growing. Unlike some other lichens which are slower growing, lobaria Pulmonaria may be harvested safely, by the craft dyer. I gather lungwort from the ground, around the trees after a wind storm, but it does the population no harm to pick it directly from the branches.
It is a large, loosely attached leaf lichen, much lobed, with a bright green upper surface when wet, which fades to a pale blue or green-brown when dry. The lower surface is brownish with patches of white.
  Lungwort is a substantive dye, that is, it needs no mordant. The colour it produces is a warm cinnamon, and it is very fast. To use Lungwort, soak the collected lichens for a couple of days, then boil the lichens in the soaking water for an hour or so. Cool the bath, enter the clean, thoroughly wetted wool, and simmer for another hour or until the desired colour is reached. You can strain the bath before using; I rarely do so, as I think that there may still be some colour left in the lichen. After I dye my yarn, I remove the bits and pieces remaining in the skeins, by giving them a good shake after they come out of the bath and once again after they are dry.
When I dye wool for my own use, I do not weigh items to determine a fibre-to-dyestuff ratio. With lungwort, I would use a white plastic grocery bag stuffed full, to dye about four ounces of my hand spun wool. The colour will be a pleasant mid-range warm brown, a very important component of my palette.

This is a beautiful plant and also a fascinating one. It is well known for being the source of several important cardiac medicines, a group collectively called 'Digitalis'. Strong medicines are often strong poisons and the whole plant is  highly toxic. In spite of this, no special precautions are needed to collect it, and no harm will come to the craft dyer who uses it, although I do make the bath in a well ventilated area and avoid inhaling the fumes directly.
Foxgloves are native to Europe and some parts of Asia and Africa. The Common Foxglove, Digitalis puerperal, is widely naturalized in temperate regions around the world; it beautifies roadsides and byways here on the British Columbia coast, and this is what I use for my dyebaths, however many cultivars are available through seed houses, which probably have similar application as a dye.This is a biennial plant. In the first year it forms a rosette of leaves; the flower spike appears in the second year, it is the part used to make dye.
There has been considerable speculation as to the origin of the common name, which is ancient. It seems most likely, rather than having anything to do with foxes, to have been derived from 'folksglove', that is, glove of the fairy folk.
To use as a dye, the simultaneous method is best, as is the case with most flowers. I have never weighed out a plant-to-fiber ratio  (I seldom do when I am not dying commercially)  I simply cut a big sheaf of flower stalks--all shades of pink, as well as white, may be used. The dyer who wants a consistent result will wish to weigh these. Chop them into small pieces and place in a cool dyebath with four ounces of clean, thoroughly wetted wool. Bring the temperature to a boil then immediately reduce to simmer, stirring gently and often. All the colour will run within half an hour, and the wool should then be immediately removed, as flower colours will often dull if left too long in the bath. Rinse in water of a similar temperature---I find it convenient to let my yarn cool before rinsing--and hang to dry in the shade. The colour will be a clear, bright, cool yellow, which top-dyes excellently with indigo or woad to make an attractive cool green, and that is generally what I do with it. I consider this colour to be a mainstay of my palette, due to  its beauty and reliability.