Saturday morning, Lesley, Becca and I hopped on our bikes and rode down to the Owens River to harvest rabbit brush.
We quickly noticed that there were a lot of bees, all going for the same flowers we were! This made for slow work, but luckily no one got stung.
Some bushes had larger flowers than others, and we gravitated towards those, which filled our buckets quicker. We harvested from one bush and then moved onto another, covering a pretty large area, but there was no end to the rabbit brush!
After almost an hour of collecting, we had ten pounds of rabbit brush, which would dye about three pounds of yarn and fabric. Yikes!
We loaded the flowers into my bike trailer, and pedaled home.
Then the boiling began. First, we mordanted the yarn and fabric in alum, and rinsed it prior to dyeing.
Next we boiled the rabbit brush for an hour. I started to get excited when the stirring spoon started to get yellow! After boiling for an hour, we removed the flowers to make room in the dye pots for the fiber.
The second the yarn was placed in the water, it started to turn yellow!
Then we simmered the fiber and dye together for another hour. With great anticipation, we removed the dyed fibers from the dye pot to much oohing and aahing, and rinsed before hanging to dry.
Some rabbit brush flowers still stuck to the yarn!
Just look at the color. So brilliant and happy.
The work went quickly with three of us working to rinse and hang the fibers to dry.
The finished product: nine hanks of yarn and two yards of fabric. Note the color difference, the cotton not taking up the color as brilliantly as the wool.
What would you do with yarn of this brilliant nature?
Learn to knit a sweater of course! More on that coming soon.
What’s next? Maybe dyeing with pear bark from Lesley’s tree?
How beautiful!
Gorgeous – sunshine came out of the dye pot! =D
[…] and 13. Dyeing fabric and yarn with Rabbitbrush and […]
[…] Of course, the instant I decided to start a knitting project, I wanted to dye the yarn. Lesley suggested this wool from Flint Knits as one she liked. I purchased six skeins and dyed them yellow with rabbit brush flowers. You can read more about that and see lovely pictures here. […]
Wow! This is amazing. I am not sure I could collect the rabbit brush, since I am allergic, but looks like a fun process nonetheless.
Thanks! It definitely is all about the process, as it takes a while. It is amazing how much plant matter it takes to dye a small amount of fiber. I am eager to continue experimenting with other natural dyes, though in the winter there are less options.
[…] was my first scarf and second knitting project ever. I used some of my rabbitbrush dyed yarn in a pattern called branching out. Judge’s comments: strive for consistent […]