Dyeing Garden

My flower garden is dying, but that didn't stop me from using the dried materials to dye some fabric.  This was just a simple experiment.  I packed some small baby food jars with plant materials, poured warm water over them, stuffed a small piece of PFD fabric in the jars and sealed them.  Then I let them sit 2 weeks on my front porch.  No mordants or anything else was used.  Most of these were very weak as my rain deprived and neglected garden had little to yield.   The coreopsis seed heads turned the water a lovely yellow shade right away.  The cloth was dark yellow until rinsed, then it was very pale.  I believe if I boiled the ingredients instead of only setting them in sun and used some mordants results would be stronger.  Here are the sample pieces. I am going to make them into a quilted journal cover for my natural dye notes.

The images below show samples and what was used as well as the original cloth color.