Making Greens

Green is one of the most difficult colours to make with natural dyes. In the past I've bought a green dye from a supplier - made up of natural indigo, pomegranate and alkanet. And I've made a green by mixing iron water, onion skin or buddleia, and logwood. I buy the logwood from suppliers.

I wanted to make a green from local plants. Diane suggested trying buddliea, ivy and iron water. All of these are plentiful! So many neighbours are so pleased when I trim back their ivy and dried buddliea flowers, and in my shed I have many large jars of iron water made from rusty items.

I made several dye baths, adding more ivy leaves made the green more intense, more buddliea made a golden green, the iron water darkened the colour, as we'd expect. I'm pleased with the results.

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The colours don't show really well in the photo. As always, the silk threads took the colour differently from the cotton fabrics.

Thank you for your suggestion Diane!