I went to collect some mistletoe – Amyema? – from river red gum (Eucalptus camaldulensis) nearby; I’ve been watching it carefully over the past few months, and the sight of a
lorry parked on the last remaining patch of undeveloped land had me heading off with secateurs and collecting bag.
After pruning a few shoots, I noticed there were plenty of dead leaves on the ground, dark brown and crisp. They were surprisingly easy to tell apart from the gum leaves, as they were thicker and more curled in their dry state – and more brittle. I’d soon collected enough for an experiment.
Both fresh and dried le
aves were given their own pot to soak in overnight. The next morning, the fresh leaves had started to ferment, and there was a waxy film on the surface and the sides of the pot. Simmering for an hour produced no noticeable colour (just an unpleasant smell), so I turned to the dry leaves. The liquor was already a deep brown before cooking, and after an hour the yarn was added. It had already been in a E. sideroxylon dyepot and had only picked up a smidgen of colour. This time, however, the yarn took on a straw colour.
E. cinerea is about the only eucalyptus I’ve had success with in the dyepot. Although many sources advise that a mordant isn’t necessary, I wasn’t going to take any chances: 50:50 alum + CoT to 15% wof it was again. The leaves were dry and had been lying at the side of the house for a few months in the hope that some extra sun would improve the colour. They were placed in the pot along with their twigs, normal tap water as opposed to filtered, and simmered for about an hour. The liquid was a pale apricot colour, as opposed to E. sideroxylon which gives a deep, chocolate-red as 
soon as it hits the water.
Tagetes minuta, aka Peruvian mint, huacatay, stinking Roger… and a noxious weed in many parts of the world. It does however have some interesting uses: seasoning, herbal tea, medicine, garden stake and dye.
nmordanted & dyed with 400% wof dried tops, 3 + 4) 50:50 alum-CoT to 15% wof, dyed with 200% fresh tops and 200% dried tops respectively. Once cool, they were washed with soap nuts; there was no noticeable colour loss. You can see that the yarn used to tie the skeins took on more colour.
but there was Alice, trying to make her way through the first door after drinking the potion that made her smaller. The floor had black and white tiles, chequer-board fashion, and because the floor was sloping, perspective made the tiles smaller in size the closer to the door they became.
r about an hour. It took considerably longer than this to strain the liquid through double muslin, but has probably saved even more time that would have been spent trying to get the fine particles out of the yarn. This is destined to be the weft to go with the dahlia-dyed yarn.
I only had a few small dahlia plants in the garden, but a local enthusiast came to the rescue with what must have been about five kilos of freshly lopped flowers – plenty to experiment with. I don’t know what percentage of the weight of a fresh flower is water, but as they dried, so it became clear that 5kg wasn’t going to go as far as first thought. However, the results were pretty amazing.
ite alpaca, mordanted with alum at 10% wof. They were simmered for another hour, then one skein was removed. A generous spoonful of bicarb was added to the pot, turning the remaining skein copper. I wasn’t able to repeat the effect with the remaining dyepots, but got very acceptable results nonetheless. The photo shows them paler than real life.
Hedgerow weaver 