Dandelion Dyeing

As horrendously long as this Winter has felt, it seems like a miracle to see the green leaves budding on the trees again, life returning to the world. The days are longer, and the farmers in their farm towns around us are using them to turn and till their plots for futures in corn or wheat or some peculiar crop that smells like spit. A new grassy fuzz covers all but the most recently tilled fields, and those pastures still waiting for maintenance have taken on a pretty bright-yellowness, an attitudinal lift cast by millions of dandelions. It is one of the first signs of Spring here in western Germany and welcomed every year, (by me at least, who knows how the farmers feel about it :) and this time around it happened that I had a plan for these cheery little fellows.

A recent project had led me to experimenting with natural dyes at home and I decided to collect and use the dandelions to transform some plain vintage hankies into little fancy ones. The first step was to harvest the heads from Kari's dog pasture. If you have no such pasture, then I don't think the city or the neighbors would mind you pulling the "weeds" from parks and around sidewalks. Freeway medians, I'd avoid. If you have no other source of dandelion, then find just one and dig up as much of the root as you can, then stick it in a pot in your window and grow your own. I'm not entirely sure how to grow anything, but these gotta be easy - they grow constantly even when you try extra hard to have them not. Our total yield - by 3 adults and a toddler - was about a plastic shopping bag-full, over an hour or so. And really it could have been done with about half that, but the work was easy and actually fun - especially for the babe, who had been cooped up in the car for hours.

After consulting a few random and generally unhelpful resources, the flower heads were stripped of their petals, which were then simmered in a few cups of boiling water. Meanwhile, the hankies simmered in a separate pot with water plus a cup of vinegar, all of this going on for an hour or so. In addition to smelling awesome, this is supposed to regulate the pH or something like that, and was recommended for pre-treating the material in lieu of using a mordant*. This process was very haphazard and basically made up by me, so although the dyebath came out strongly colored, the hankies did not. I mean, they're definitely not white, but not what I was hoping for either. Only slightly deterred, I set to work on a separate batch, this time boiling the entire flower head before straining the pulp and then re-boiling as before with some freshly pickled hankies. This second batch produced a better-lasting and darker colored dye, but as would be expected, these hankies came out a greenier yellow that what I wanted. Sunshine yellow, damnit.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordant

And of course the lighting in the kitchen is awful so they all look brown anyway....

Once I had the dyes finished I realized that I had to find a way to use the tons-o-pulp from the flowers once they are strained from the dyebath. Because I am me, and Kari is Kari (or also me), we got out the blender and began making paper. You will have to stay tuned for the conclusion to that one because, well, there was SO much pulp that I am still working on it! In the future I will make my dyes and paper pulp in one day, then take on each project separately.

Before I tangent off, I have a plan for natural dye reform: simplifying for every kitchen. This same scenario has played itself out in my kitchen before - in experiments with blueberry, strawberry, and artichoke dyes - and this is the last time I am settling for an off-extraordinary end product. I have decided that I will grow Coreopsis flowers this summer and use them for dye. In addition, I can collect wild Queen Anne's lace and acorns, and use the marigolds from the Community Garden (more about that later, too). All of these things use the mordant Alum, and I am researching exactly what that means, and what to do to have optimal dye results. So I'll fill you in as the dye venture progresses as well.

And More from the Corn Trade soon.

katie