Natural Dyeing with Hawthorn

As you walk along country lanes and park hedgerows you will be greeted by the hawthorn blossom. It has finally sprung and it beckons for us to benefit from its feminine healing powers.

Hawthorn has its strongest affinity with the heart. Opening us to giving and receiving Love. It encourages self-love and self-acceptance strengthening our inner courage. In fact the word courage comes from the latin for "cor" which means "heart" suggesting that the vulnerability that comes with opening our heart is what it means to be courageous. We love to wear powerful herbs against our skin.

Your skin is the largest organ of your body, its thin dermal layers absorbing the physical and energetic qualities of the plants, our allies, that we have been connected to for generations.

We have been experimenting with it as a plant dye. Using the flowers and leaves combined it creates a beautiful coral pink. 

If you would like to try this at home here are some instructions: Fill a saucepan full with flowers and leaves. Cover with water at least 2cm above the top of the hawthorn. Bring to the boil and simmer for 1 hour then leave in to cool .

Use a pan large enough to allow the fabric some room if you want an even colour.

Place your pan on the hob and bring to the boil before simmering gently for 1 hour.

Keep checking to see how the dye colour is looking and when you are happy strain out the skins and place your material in the dye bath.

Keep on a gentle heat and move fabric around freely. For deeper colours leave the fabric to sit in the dye overnight and cool. 

When doing natural dyeing you need to prepare the fabrics. You can do this with a metallic based mordant (instructions here) or alternatively a protein rich mordant like Soya, Cow or Goats milk. 

For this fabric we mordanted with goats milk and water in a 1:1 ratio

This involved soaking the silk (you can use cotton or linen too) in goats milk, then putting on a spin cycle to wring out excess milk without leaving streaks before placing on the line to dry. Repeat this process without rinsing 3 times minimum. Once dry leave another 24 hours - 1 week to help the milk adhere.

For this mottled effect I crunched it up the fabric as I moved it about in the dye bath. 

I also took it out after an initial soak, dried it then placed it back in the dye bath. 

With Love + Knickers...