Cutch extract has a huge tannin content, making it almost universally useful to the natural dyer. It can be used both as a mordant and a dye. Cutch is an extract from the acacia tree, and it has almost as many applications as it has names: cutch, catechu, kath, seesiat, kasu, cacho, terra japonica…. The […]
Warm summer weather doesn’t exactly make you want to knit wool. So I’ve started dyeing Midsommer, a thin 3-ply pure linen yarn. So far, I’ve mostly dyed wool, and dyeing plant fibres really is something completely different. Textiles made from linen are known way back in ancient times, and the oldest find of linen textile […]
Dock or sorrel are useful plants for mordanting – this was a fact that I’d gotten from reading and made a mental note of. I couldn’t remember where I read it, so I decided to just go ahead and try it. I picked curly (or curled) dock (Rumex crispus) in the roadside around July-August. Curly […]