Osage Orange Recipe

Osage Orange Recipe:

1. Add 1 gal of water to your dye pot;



2. Add one cup of plain table salt - the salt works as a leveling agent, which gives you a more even dye - remember this is cane I'm dyeing so this may not work on cloth materials;



3. Add 1 cup of Osage Orange powder/saw dust;



4. Bring all of this to a boil;



5. Add 1 more gal of water so you have a 2 gal dye pot;



6. Boil for 2 hours unless you've let your Osage Orange saw dust soak over night, then boil for 1 hour;



7. Add 1 coil of cane and boil for an additional 2 hours;



8. Remove from heat and let soak over night. I did not let this particular batch soak overnight because I was looking for a somewhat light color and this turned dark really quick. I left it in the dye pot for about 4 hours after removing it from the heat. The finished test I took, got much lighter than it appears in the above photo, which is what I wanted.


9. Always rinse your cane after you remove it from the dye pot.

Now, I had used a tannin or tara powder mordant on this coil of cane prior to adding it to the dye pot. I did not use any alum because I didn't want the dye to turn too yellow, I'm looking for more of a tan color.

Sources also suggest adding a copper modifier towards the end of the dyeing process.

The photo at the top is the cane after it is dry and the photo at the bottom is the cane which has dried some so it's not fresh out of the dye pot. Photo of it dry coming.

This Dye stuff is really easy to use and gives you good color on the cane.

To see this dye in a woven basket - PHOTOS