All Hail the logwood tree!

My adventures into natural dying had come to a bit of a standstill. After the wonders of sunshine onion gold, incredible dahlia yellows, subtle acorn greys and soft avocado peaches, my more recent dying adventures would be more aptly titled Fifty Shades of Brown. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not against a good beige, gentle taupe or subtle maroon, but when it feels like your dye pots are all yielding shades between sludge and dirty gunge, it is time for a change.

Those of you from these parts will not be surprised to hear that there is not much that can be harvested locally at the moment that will produce exciting pigments, so in an attempt to regain my colour va va voom, I ordered in some logwood.

I duly soaked fifty grams of the red-brown splinters overnight. I added more water in the morning, heated the brew, and a pot of incredible indigo liquid resulted.

My excitement rose as I lowered pieces of soya soaked card of various descriptions into the blue lagoon.

They emerged in a range of colours from purple, through purple and into dark pinks.

I love the instant reward of paper and card dipping and I use the resulting pieces of mini natural art as a basis for various calligraphy projects.

The colours were looking great, so it was time for some material dying. I had previously mordanted some cotton with symplocus, so that was added to the pot.

The first pieces were left overnight and emerged in dark shades of midnight blue. Ferocious rinsing, which is apparently vital with logwood as it tends to bleed, did not manage to shift the fantastic colour and it just seemed to get better and better as it dried.

In went more fabrics, some mordanted, some just soya soaked and some cotton that had simple been scoured. A couple were left in the dye for a few hours, and some for a mere twenty minutes, but still, the pot of blue loveliness kept delivering utter beauties.

I love the perfect imperfections of natural dying—the tone changes and random patterns that result purely by chance all on one piece of material.

Now I have a stash of new blues with which to get creating. I know they will complement the golds, pinks, greys and yellows of my previous dying adventures brilliantly.

Va va voom fully returned; all hail the logwood tree.

The Madder One

All I need to do now is give the other 50g to The Wild One to see what wonders she can create.