Houttynia cordata

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.

Hollyhocks

Alcea, trémière, Malve, malvarrosa, leamhach beannaithe

I’d been saving the heads of my one dark purple hollyhock for over a year. Why only one? They always seem to get rust and then grow stunted. Either that or the insects bore into the buds before the flowers open.

Anyway, about 60g of dried heads (petals only; no green bits) were soaked in cold tap water for most of the day, then simmered for about an hour. The liquid was viscous and smelt rather jammy. Nice! Hollyhocks

After straining, 6 x 5g skeins were simmered in the liquor for another hour. The first two (far left) were removed (no mordant, alum + CoT), then two of the same ilk (middle) were dropped into a jar of the liquor + a slug of vinegar which altered the shade of the mordanted yarn from brown-with-a-hint-of-green to brown-with-a-hint-of-pink . The last two were left in the pan and had a spoonful of bicarb added. Alchemy! Two shades of gobsmacking moss green!

Dock seeds 2

Rumex spp, oseille, Ampfer, acedera, copóg

I was determined to try again for the red that is to be had from dock seeds, so tried fermenting some in water for a few days. Having read about alcohol extraction of Turkey Red, I later steeped 40g seeds in 300ml meths (+ water) for a few days, and then some more in water + ammonia.

dock seeds1 The first two skeins were both unmordanted. The seeds were steeped in tap water for about five days. There was a whitish film on the surface of the water, so I decided it was either dye straight away or boil the mixture to kill off any mould, and risk losing the colour. The mixture was simmered for about an hour (maybe more) and was clearly reddish. The liquor was then strained over the skeins, and simmered for a further hour. It still looked red, so I tried adding some vinegar to see if this would help. It looked as though I’d simply diluted the colour, so added some bicarb quickly to offset the acid. The foam on top of the liquor was quite red, but the skeins dock seeds2 typically didn’t take on this depth of colour. Still, it’s the closest to red I’ve achieved so far.

I tried another lot in tap water and decided it was time to use them when the mixture started to smell of wee. I followed my usual routine of unmordanted, alum + CoT, unmordanted + alkaline modifier – bicarb, [alum + CoT] + alkaline modifier. The results were very different to the first try. The seeds were picked in different locations and the second lot may have had more natural water due to rain (the first lot dock seeds3 came from.the side of the freeway).

And those steeped in alcohol? No reds, but deeper colours than the second batch. I’ll try again next year and will harvest some unripe seeds on their stalks. Worth a go, and as they’re a weed it won’t matter.

Those steeped in water + ammonia had a skein of cotton yarn thrown in and left for a few days. Although the liquor was very dark, there was barely a trace of colour on the yarn after rinsing. Now, to dig up some dock roots…

Phormium tenax – NZ flax

I came across a NZ flax plant with some seed heads (mostly empty) and removed as many as I could. My own plant is still young, and the garden centres only seem to carry varieties with colourful leaves rather than the species. I’ve sown a few seeds that remained in the pods and will see how they grow. I notice these plants every time I go back to England – there was even one growing on Brighton Beach (clearly a landscape planting rather than self-sown), so they must be extremely hardy to tolerate both SA summers and English winters along with salt spray.

phormium1

The Woolcraft Book states that you can get a purple-brown colour from the pods with a copper modifier, but I just stuck to the usual alum/CoT and alkaline modifier routine. The book also mentions allowing the pods to ferment for a period of time, and warning of the offensive odour. I left them soaking in plain tap water for about 5 days; the black dye came out of the pods quickly, but I’m not sure whether the 5 days added to the effect. There was no smell, but perhaps that was due to the lower temperatures, now that we’re in autumn.

The alum/CoT mordant (samples 2 & 4) transformed the yellow-brown to a more pinky-brown, whereas the alkaline modifier (samples 3 & 4) deepened the shades. I hope to eventually have more of the resource to play with and also to try processing the fibre.

Heliopsis

Heliopsis helianthoides, hélops, Sonnenaugen, girasol falso

And there’s more… The bright, sunshine yellow flowers of the heliopsis were definitely worth saving, retaining the colour even when dried; the petals tend to wrinkle without browning. I’m not sure how many grams went into the pot (following the same procedure as the dahlias, zinnias and yarrow below), maybe about 60g?

The only shade that really stands out is number 4, so as with the zinnias, future use will depend on light- and wash-fast testing . As garden plants, however, these take the summer heat and dryness well. I originally had doubles, but then a single appeared in the clump, so maybe they reverted. Either way, the colour’s still there.

Yarrow

Achillea millefolium, achillée, Schafgarbe, milenrama, athair thalún

I had to pull most of the yarrow out as it was taking over, and growing under the rose bush meant any attempt to keep it tidy was quite a prickly experience, so out it came leaving plenty of dye material to play with!

yarrow2

The stalks dried well and were chopped, stored in an old coffee jar and forgotten for a while. I didn’t bother weighing them, but estimate there was at least 200% wof. It was simmered for about an hour, strained, then the yarn was added. Similar to the other recent experiments the skeins were, left to right: no mordant, 8%/7% alum/CoT, no mordant + alkaline modifier, alum/CoT mordant + alkaline modifier.

The modifier (bicarb) turned the green skeins yellow, similar to many other garden dye plants. The original green (without mordant), however, is one colour I’ve never attained before and one to try again soon using a higher %wof to get a deeper shade.

Zinnias

zinnias Another bumper crop came from my first (successful) attempt to grow zinnias: these were dark pink and pink/apricot. In the height of summer, these dried to about 1/5 of their size and lost most of the colour. Those picked at the end of summer lost about 1/2 of their size and retained most of their colour. I chose the latter to experiment with and used about 100g; I’ll try with the faded ones at a later date.

As with the dahlias, the alum/CoT brought out the yellow, and the bicarb modifier intensified monarch the shade.

Would I use zinnias again over other dye plants that give yellows? This’ll depend on the results of the wash-fast and light-fast tests to come. As for growing them, the monarch butterflies love them and they tolerate the summer heat admirably.

Dock seeds

I finally got round to dyeing the skein of yarn to contribute to the Ethel Mairet project at the Ditchling Museum. I’d already tried dyeing with dock roots, but the yarn came out muddy yellow with dockseeds added patches of mud (next time I’ll peel the roots). For the project I decided to try the seeds. I’d read in The colour cauldron (Su Grierson) that a red colour could be obtained by boiling the seeds successively over a few days. Tempting…

I managed to pick 70g of seeds whilst out walking on one of the many local reserves. The seeds were boiled for about an hour at a time for 4 days in total. The water didn’t change colour much, but I keep reminding myself that what you see is not usually what you get. The yarn was sheep’s wool, dockyarn mordanted with 8% alum/7% CoT wof, boiled for an hour or so, then left to cool overnight.

The picture shows the yarn (right, together with another woollen yarn) several shades lighter than reality (we’ll go for medium-dark beige), but still not the red I was hoping to get. Maybe tap water + (sub-)species + soil + rainfall + other variables? I’ll try again, but maybe with some copper added to the water and later in the season. Still, a worthwhile experiment.

Alkanet

I came across this completely by chance in an Indian grocery (ratan jot रतन जोत in Hindi) a while ago and bought two bags of it, then grabbed two more bags for fellow Guild members. It was only $2.50 a bag, maybe 100g, so too good to miss. That particular shop has stopped selling it, and I’m wondering if it’s since become a prohibited food item: it’s banned for such purposes in the UK.

Anyway, back to the alkanet… I steeped the root in alcohol for five days – a whole bottle of meths, to be precise. This didn’t make it a very cheap experiment, but I had fun. alkanet

Alum-mordanted yarn was then heated in the strained liquor plus enough water to make a dye bath for an hour, then left overnight to cool. The resulting yarn was blacker than black – a blackboard after it’s been washed at the end of the year, hands after they been sorting through the coal scuttle, fingers after they’ve finished blackening the grate (someone else will have to verify the last two – London was already a smokeless zone by the time I was born). The photo was taken in the evening sun on a 42oC day, so doesn’t really reflect the blackness of the yarn.

I have yet to test for lightfastness, which I understand isn’t high, but will start with a pair of socks if the two balls will stretch to a pair of size 12’s.

Nocino yarn

nocino3 After coming across some walnut trees a few years ago, I decided to try pickling the unripe fruits, then discovered a recipe for nocino. The fruits are cut up, then steeped in vodka, sugar, lemon zest and spices for a month. It only takes a few days for the mixture to start turning black, which got me thinking; if the walnuts can stain anything in sight (hands, chopping boards, counter-tops, etc), maybe they can also dye yarn?

After the four weeks were up, I strained and bottled the mixture, then put the leftover walnuts and spices to good use. They were boiled for about an hour, then alum-mordanted yarn was added. I didn’t bother weighing or measuring as it seemed futile. The walnuts were added to the original mixture by number, not weight, and there was naturally some difference in size.

The yarn was heated for another hour, then left overnight before rinsing. Th nocino e smell was like Christmas cake from the start of the process to the very end, and one year later the yarn still smells yummy. I might try making something with it if I can bear to stop smelling it.

And the colour? A deep, honey-brown… the colour of Christmas cake mixture in the mixing bowl, when it’s just ripe for dipping the finger in for a taste… The resulting liqueur is pretty good, I have to say. Viscous and deep black-green with just the right amount of bitterness. It’s best left for a year to mature, and has now become a yearly ritual.