Saturday, August 19, 2006

Other Dye Materials

Well if it grows in the wild and is either small enough to fit in a dye pot or can be cut small enough to fit in a dye pot, it can probably be used to dye cane for baskets.

Other examples of natural dye material:


  • Red onion mentioned earlier;
  • Spinach;
  • Beets;
  • Red cabbage;
  • Leaf of the River Cane plant;
  • All types of berries, raspberry, blueberry (dyeing with berries is somewhat different than with say Red onion);
  • All types of flowers, leaves, bark and roots

Dyes used by the early pioneers:

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/naturaldyes.html

So look around you and see what is available!

2 comments:

Beryl Moody said...

Do you ever use Osage Orange in your dyeing? I understand that it is native to Oklahoma and I often use it as the source for a very potent gold/yellow dye.

Cherokee Baskets said...

I have not tried it yet...but I hope to try it, if I can find a source...:)