Before I get into this -  Seed Stitch Fine Yarn recently asked to interview me about the Decomposition series and 52 Forms of Fungi, and they posted  this nice article last night.  I've had a couple of other interviews that I just realized were never linked on the blog - I'll compile those to share soon.  Moving on to the subject at hand.....

You may expect that this will become a regular inclusion in forthcoming blog posts.  I am in love with solar dyeing, and I don't care who knows it!  More than anything, I'm excited to experiment with different plants and mordants to learn as much about natural dyeing as possible... so here we go.

This is my second attempt at solar dyeing (you can read about the first project  here and  here), but it's my first attempt using actual plants that I harvested.  The first experiment incorporated some dye extracts processed by  Earthhues.  This recipe includes prairie coneflower or Ratibida columnifera (thanks to  Misti for confirming the plant ID - and by the way, if you're the type who is interested in natural observation and gardening, or you just like looking at beautiful photos of nature in general, you should really check out  her blog. I enjoy it very much.)  I used alum and vinegar in the dye jar as well, and the fiber is  Knit Picks bare Stroll sock yarn (100 g).

After just the first afternoon I noticed that the water was taking on a purplish hue, although I read that coneflower results in green.  We shall see!

Another jar with logwood purple extract, alum and vinegar is sitting out on the porch as well, although I did not get to take any photos of it.