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 Capture
Summer’s Colors in Fibers
By
Carol
Spence
LEXINGTON, Ky., (Sept. 20, 2006) – As the searing heat of summer
fades into memory, walk out your back door or take a drive down
a country road. In the crisp, cozy days of autumn, some of
nature’s bounty can still be found – in the form of plants that
create beautiful natural dyes.
Natural dyes are colors extracted from the various parts of
plants, and occasionally insects and minerals. Dyes created from
natural extracts go back in time thousands of years.
Roberta Burnes is a fiber artist with 15 years of experience
working with natural dyes. An education coordinator at The
Arboretum, a joint venture of the University of Kentucky and
Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, she said she was
drawn to them through “a combination of my love for working with
fiber and my love of color and also my love for doing things
that hearken back to historical uses for plants.”
“To me it’s a way of learning about the history of people who
came before me,” she said.
Burnes conducts classes in dyeing, using materials from nature.
She is eager for others to learn what she knows – that natural
dyes exude a warmth and depth of color that synthetic dyes don’t
produce. There is also compatibility among naturally-derived
hues.
“It’s funny, but I have found that colors you wouldn’t dream of
putting together all seem to harmonize when they come from a
natural source,” she said.
At a recent workshop at The Arboretum, Burnes taught
participants that the colors of nature are as close as their
gardens or the local grocery store. And it isn’t only cultivated
plants that make beautiful dyes.
 “The
nice thing about natural dyes is that there are a lot of nasty
weeds in your garden that you can make use of,” Burnes said.
Broadleaved dock, amaranth and lambs quarters may invade a
garden, but they each produce a beautiful hue. Cultivated plants
also can generate an entire palette of colors, with garden
blossoms, onion skins and sprigs of rosemary producing hues that
can be either bold or gentle on the eye. The workshop
participants found that using the blossoms from French marigolds
created a bright, intense gold, while the broadleaved dock
produced more of a golden tan tint.
Natural dyes often are not as intense as synthetic dyes. Colors
tend toward greens, yellows, oranges and browns. Blues and reds
are more difficult to obtain. Most reds come from plant roots,
not flowers or foliage. The most intense red in a natural dye
doesn’t stem from plant material, but from cochineal, an insect.
Cochineal, depending on the solution strength, can even produce
“bright screaming purples and pinks,” Burnes said.
Blues or purples are quite rare in nature, she explained. Most
come from indigo leaves, which require a long fermentation
process involving urea. Before indigo made blue accessible to
the masses, Burnes said a certain type of snail found in the
Mediterranean region was used. The dye produced was highly
sought after and very expensive, which is the reason purple is
associated with royalty and wealth.
Plant-based natural dyes are derived by simmering plant parts in
distilled water that has been heated to 140 degrees. The longer
the plant material soaks in the simmering bath, the more intense
the first color.
“With natural dyes, when you dye you slowly exhaust the dye
bath, so you end up with a whole palette of the same color
scheme,” Burnes said. “You might have your bright yellows, but
you’ll also have your pastels.”
The idea of natural dyes may lead one to believe that they are
not as toxic as their synthetic counterparts. But Burnes noted
that it’s important to keep dedicated pots and utensils for the
process.
“You definitely don’t want to do it with things you would also
use for cooking or eating,” Burnes advised, “because it does use
all kinds of plant materials. Some of that plant material is not
stuff you’re going to want to eat. It also uses mordant, which
is the chemical, the salt (or metal) that fixes the color.”
Mordants come in a variety of choices, from mildly to highly
toxic. Burnes often uses potassium alum, although not the same
variety found in the pickling aisle in a grocery. She chooses
not to use other mordants such as chrome or tin because they are
“so very toxic” to the environment.
The mordant can be directly applied to the natural fiber by
dissolving it in hot water and then simmering it along with the
fiber for 30 minutes. Or it can be included in the dye bath
itself. The amount of mordant applied to the dye bath depends on
the amount of fiber to be dyed.
Animal-derived natural fibers accept the dye better than
plant-derived fibers. Wools, whether as roving, yarns or fabric,
readily accept natural dyes, whereas cottons do not without
additional mordanting and, Burnes said, “many, many additional
steps.” Silks also can produce striking results. Synthetic
fibers such as polyester will completely reject the dye and
remain white.
Old wool skirts are one of Burnes’ favorite sources for
material. She admits to rummaging through Goodwill and Salvation
Army stores to find light colored skirts that she will then cut
into squares for dyeing.
“If you want to start cheap, you can make little patchwork quilt
things or pillows out of wool skirts,” she said. “I make rugs
out of them by cutting them into strips.”
All in all, Burnes finds that using natural dyes stimulates the
creative process.
“You’re getting to know the plants for one thing,” she said.
“You accumulate these samples of colors and you start to get
ideas about what to do with them. I’ve got whole projects that
have been created out of these colors.”
And if the color doesn’t come out the way she hoped?
“It moves you in another direction. You get what you get and
then you go from there and they all go together. It’s very
exciting.”
Burnes will conduct an upcoming workshop at The Arboretum
entitled “Nature Weaving.” The three-hour class will combine art
with nature. Participants will create a tapestry made from
natural-dyed wool, scented herbs, grasses and other natural
materials. The workshop is on Saturday, Oct. 21 from 11 a.m. to
2 p.m. and costs $15 ($12 for Friends of The Arboretum).
Pre-register by calling The Arboretum at 859-257-9339. |
Contact: Roberta Burnes, 859-257-9339 |
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