An exploration of home grown colour
For the last decade , I have cultivated colour in my own garden, upscaling my dye plant pots and foraging for colour to a fair size dye garden 3 years ago. I do enjoy coaxing vibrant hues from the flowers and leaves that surround me.
My journey with natural pigments began much earlier, back in the 1980s, when I started dyeing yarns for my weaving practice at collage in the Scottish borderlands. There was a period—while I was teaching art, craft, and design—when my weaving took a paused but the time was not wasted I learned mindfulness and the importance of our connection to nature for wellness, but the longing for botanical dyes and the sound of a shuttle hitting its picker box drew me back.
Today, I want to share one of my passions: growing Japanese indigo, Persicaria tinctoria, and transforming its fresh green leaves into brilliant blue pigment. Also to demonstrate that this little act can be one of quite rebellion, turning my back on synthetic colours and all their planet pollution during and after their production. The natural dye process of working with nature in a completely soil to soil ethos is both enchanting and deeply satisfying, bringing a sense of reverence as I witness the alchemy of nature: how a humble leaf can yield such a coveted hue how a humble woman can own her own colours.
Growing Japanese indigo requires patience and care—sowing seeds in early spring, nurturing the seedlings through the unpredictable weather, and watching as the plants flourish into lush, emerald stands a few months later. I am amazed how strong they grow. The harvest is relatively simple I pluck the leaves and begin the extraction, submerging them in water to coax out the latent blue.
The transformation never fails to inspire—a green leaf, soaked for a day or two to reveal a luminous green water aerated, then aprox a teaspoonful per small bucket of lime added and voila a swirl of blue flock that seems almost miraculous and quickly settles into pigment.
This homegrown pigment has become the soul of my weaving. It carries the story of seasons in my garden, the memory of every sunlit day and rain-soaked afternoons tending, tidying and soaking various plants in buckets and jars. I love how seasonal my weaving has become the summer too hot for the clatter of flying shuttles, for me is much more productive tending to my dye garden and in mid winter when the fury of Christmas orders has stalled the anticipation of colours to come as new seeds are planted. Each batch of yarn I dye is unique, a testament to the living nature of my craft and the place from which it grows. I no longer worry about what synthetic chemicals are in touch with my biggest organ the skin I no longer fret about what hue works with what as for me nature has harmony every shade hue and tone complements another in botanically dyed yarn seamlessly
Hand Loom Woven in Scotland
