The four stages of the dye process (see below for details)
Coreopsis dye results
Playing around with my small stash of pressed leaves. I made a rubbing of a passionflower leaf, coloured it with an ink stamp pad, then cut it out and stitched it onto some Somerset paper using linen thread (dyed with carrot tops). Many of the leaves are too fragile to incorporate directly, but making rubbings seems to be a good way of reproducing them... more experiments needed!
I’ve been trying to clear some space in the freezer before Christmas, so there’s a flurry of dyeing activity, mostly with frozen flowerheads. I realised the different pans sat on my decking illustrated the various stages of the dye process:
1. Dried teasels soaking in water ready to be boiled into dye
2. Yarrow just boiled up, waiting to cool down before being strained
3. Strained sunflower dye with fabric, thread and yarn, cold soaking for a day before being heated up
4. Spent coreopsis dyebath, ready to be boiled down into ink
Finally, a welcome pop of colour on a grey December day – the results of dyeing with coreopsis. Gorgeous yellow flowers, deadheaded over the summer (and stashed in my freezer). They make a lovely range of oranges (turning brown with iron oxide). Something quite magical about creating colour in winter from flowers collected in sunnier times...