Use Natural Plant Dyes to Infuse Memories Onto Fabrics
When James Young brews a batch of natural dye from plants he has grown or foraged, he knows something even more indelible than the new color of a white cloth will emerge from the bath.
He is infusing a piece of fabric with pigment, but also with a vivid story that the dyed item will keep retelling him, even from the muted tones that some plant-based dyes impart.
'Just being able to put a memory into fabric, to me, is really beautiful,' said Mr. Young, a co-owner with Guy Banner of the Utah-based Grand Prismatic Seed, where dye plants are one specialty, alongside regional natives and high desert-adapted edibles and flowers. 'And that's probably my favorite part of natural dyeing — just that being able to connect to nature in a way that preserves it,' he added.
They are pieces with provenance: gloves bearing the echo of lichen and oak galls from long-ago hikes in Oregon, where he once lived; or yarn dyed for his sister from flowers she'd admired when she visited him there. Sand dock (Rumex hymenosepalus) is one of his favorite natives to come across when hiking, so he grew some and dyed a quilt with it specifically to use for picnics and when camping.
Lots of plants offer dye potential, including ones that may already be in your garden, including black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and black hollyhock (Alcea rosea), or many that could be direct-sown now, such as various marigolds, coreopsis, cosmos and purple basil. Some roadside invasives do, too, like curly dock (Rumex crispus).
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