Well, that plant dye week, that just hasn’t happened yet. But I’m going to slowly start up the season by actually finishing some of my old halfdone posts from last year and see if that may get me going. At the very least, they’ll be out of my hair!

I’d read about saving the dyebath and use it once a week, first time I dyed with this plant. But couldn’t quite contain myself and did only 3-4 day intervals. This time I waited 3 weeks before dyeing another hank and had another surprise. Much stronger, much warmer in tone. The next one, 10 days later seemed pretty weak, so although the dyebath looked dark, I haven’t done any more.

But I think it’s interesting that it does not exhaust in the same way most plants do, but keep looking much the same after the first. I still have the jar with the leftover dyebath btw! It looks dark brown by now, who knows what’s growing in there! 😀

20th August & 1st September

I wrote last time that I wanted to do one with reeds, but although I had plenty of dye, I simply forgot. Instead one of them went in the Japanese indigo, with the intention of adding #3 to the woad, which I also forgot, having quite a handful of other yellows to try in there. Here they all are in their proper order #1 on the left:

Recently I read in an older book, that another knapweed “Centaurea scabiosa” is a better dye plant. She uses the leaves, not the flowers! Would be interesting to find and test. In fact, I didn’t know there was more than one!

So, googling this one, I’ve come to realise, that these flowers from my garden are also a type of knapweed (Centaurea montana?). Time to investigate!!! And definitely try out the leaves this year…. It has faithfully reproduced itself every year no matter how weedy or crowded that bed is, so I have high hopes for gathering seeds in case it’s good to dye, they should germinate easily in other locations too.

De sidste knopurt

Siden jeg sidst havde gang i gryden, ventede jeg denne gang 3 uger inden jeg farvede igen, og pudsigt nok blev farven meget kraftigere igen og en del varmere i forhold til før. Jeg glemte både at putte et fed ned til tagrørene og til vaiden, det må blive en anden gang. Men det er pudsigt som farvebadet bare bliver ved og ved, hvor andre ret hurtigt bliver trætte.

Så læste jeg pludselig i en farvebog af Esther Nielsen, at STOR knopurt “Centaurea scabiosa” er den hun bruger, og ikke blomsterne men bladene. Da jeg så googlede for billeder, opdagede jeg at ovenstående blomster i min have nok også er en art knopurt (Centaurea montana), så nu skal der researches, og bladene ryger nok også i en gryde i år!!