DYE JOURNAL - THE MYSTERY TREE

The range of colors I’ve been able to get from the mystery tree in my backyard.

Phew, it’s been a fun week! I’ve been out everyday rotating fibers in and out of my dye pots and the results thus far are quite interesting. I’ve had some bummer fails along with some very surprising successes.

The big takeaway that I’ve had this week: I’m in love….with the mystery tree in my yard!

Despite my research, I can’t figure out what kind of tree it is! I’m pretty certain it’s a part of the Rosaceae family and from its characteristics looks to fall into the Prunus genus. My first thoughts were that it was some type of plum or sweet cherry tree. But as far as I know, this tree never produces fruit of any kind…

Either way, I’m still in love. The limbs/leaves of this tree create the most lovely peachy orange color and the dye pot lasts foooooreeeeever. I dyed over 4 rounds of yarn before the bath began to exhaust. Amazing!!

That was the fun news. The bummer experiments came from the Japanese Maple, Dogwood and another mystery tree in my neighbor’s yard. I was able to extract color from all of these dye stuffs, but the color just wouldn’t translate to my fibers.

My Japanese Maple dye making the most lovely magenta color…

…and none of that lovely color is getting into my cotton fiber. Bummer.

It was quite disappointing and confusing. I haven’t given up hope yet though! I’ve only been dyeing cotton fiber as it’s all I have in my stash. Once I get my hands on more wool, I’ll give them a go again. There’s a couple other mordanting techniques I can try too.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to try next. My brain in still stuck in the delicious, orange haze of the mystery tree dye. Stay tuned!
- KB