Tanacetum vulgare, tanaisie, Rainfarn, tanaceto, franclus

When I was a kid, we used to call tansy “cat’s muck plant”. We didn’t know what it was at that time, we had a pet dog, and the plant stinks; it was OK to say “muck”, but not “wee” or “pee” in those days. Nowadays I don’t find tansy half as stinky, but maybe that’s to do with the climate here? Maybe the milder temperatures and higher rainfall in England made it more… juicy? pungent?

And the name? Some of the more common and acceptable names in other languages demonstrate its many uses, e.g worm plant or its appearance and niche: Rainfarn – “fern growing in the dividing strip between fields”; the name is similar in most North Germanic languages, although the word Farn becomes fann and fana, with the latter meaning something different to fern? Just a linguistic adjustment rather than a complete translation?

Back to the dye…There’s plenty of information on yarn/dye blogs on dyeing wool with tansy, and some show an impressive green colour. Definitely one to try! There is also discussion on using the plant fresh or dried, using the flowers alone or all aerial parts. I went for leaves, flowers and leaves + stems, all fresh. Quantities were generous, thanks to the strong growth of just two plants. These will need to be moved next season so that they can have their own space and not crowd out the echinacea. Also, they are to be kept away from cabbages.

The photo shows a great range of colours, but swapping between phone and camera, flash and no flash still didn’t give a totally accurate representation of the tones. Asking for too much? Yep! Think brighter and more in focus…

So… the samples on the right are all mordanted with A/CoT; those on the left were unmordanted. Top to bottom in both columns are in groups of 3 (leaves, flowers, leaves + stems): no modifier, alkaline modifier, acid modifier, Fe modifier.

The mordant clearly brought out deeper shades all round, with the alkaline brightening the yellows and turning the greens to sulphur/chartreuse. The iron modifier brought out khahki on the mordanted samples; on the unmordanted yarn it produced more generic grey tones (less blue than the photo). I think future projects will make more use of the chartreuse, but all the shades obtained would qualify for a tapestry palette.