After a number of months being very busy with my family, I have managed finally to get into my studio this week.

What a mess.

There were flowers and leaves drying everywhere, such quite a bumper harvest from my garden this year.

Coreopsis Harvest

My coreopsis plant has really settled in , and I have cut blooms all summer long.

The dried flowers are light as a feather and I have just over 100g in storage.

Adjacent to it my rudbeckia plant is not nearly so happy.  The harvest of flowers is very poor less than 25g. I think I will probably dig it up and relocate it. ‘

French Marigold bumper harvest

In the spring I was given some small French marigold plants, and they have done very well. They were not the same variety as I grew last year, so I hope they will be as successful at producing a beautiful golden yellow on wool.

I have collected over 200g – that is a lot of fibre and fabric that can be dyed.

My new discovery of buddleia

2017 was the year when I discovered this year how successful buddleia is as a dye stuff. Surprisingly even the dead flowers. So that was a really easy pick , just needed to prune the dyeing flowers. They certainly don’t look attractive , but hopefully will give some successful dye results.

Underground harvest

I have also harvested some of my madder plant roots although I really was not sure how much I could dig up without killing the plants. Perhaps I think I was a bit cautious collecting only about 50grams of dried roots.

As part of my garden tidying up , I dug up loads of dock plants and I saved the roots of the plants.  Dried they now weigh 350grams.  I understand this will dye wool a lovely brown colour.

Overall I have had a great harvest from a relatively small number of garden plants.  I am promised a sumac tree, so next year should be even better .  Look at the lovely sight of my collection of garden materials and those obtained from foraging on my shelves.

I just need to find the time to do some dyeing now. The cold dark days in January will be ideal.