houttynia – Hedgerow weaver

There were a few disappointed faces after July’s Natural Dyes workshop booked out at the Guild, so I shoved one more into the program for this year.

Alkanet, avocado pits, betel nuts, dahlia flowers, Eucalyptus nicholii, Houttynia cordata, pomegranate rind and Tagetes minuta were on the menu, with the usual run of mordanted, non-mordanted and modified experiments to give a variety of results.

yarns As with E. sideroxylon at the last workshop, the nicholii decided it preferred to stay brown rather than red, but the alkanet decided to show a little more purple. The biggest surprise was the Houttynia: rather than giving the golden yellows of a previous experiment, it gave the palest green. With an iron modifier, this gave a rather interesting shade of grey-green. One to aim for again.

The photo (used with kind permission) shows one participant’s samples ready to be taken home and re-labelled/presented. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the multicoloured spaghetti.

chameleon plant, plante caméléon, chinesischer Eidechsenschwanz, lus chameleon

After hearing the salesperson in a Sussex nursery talk about an orange-scented plant yonks ago, mater et filius, aka the two family plant-freaks, waited for the customers in front to put it down before we sniffed and bought. The Vietnamese say this plant smells of fish, but all I can smell is Nell Gwyn’s hands after a packed-out sitting in Drury Lane.

houttynia1 As it survives English winters, South Australian summers and everything the tropics has to offer, I’d say it’s pretty easy to grow and tolerant of most climates.

I recently saw this plant mentioned on a website about traditional carpet dyes (and can’t for the life of me find where I bookmarked it), and so pulled up several handfulls – it’s had a good year – and filled up another dye pot.

I usually add the leaves to Vietnamese-style cold rolls and salads, so was eager to find out just how good a dye it is. As it was simmering, there was the aroma of Nell Gwyn’s h houttynia ands in the laundry room, but nothing overpowering.

And the findings? Alum/CoT mordant definitely required, and an alkaline modifier brings out the full colour. In real life, the skein on the far right is more of a turmeric colour, full and rich. I’m eager to test this one for light- and wash-fastness.