Natural dye - Red daylily

I find natural dyeing fascinating. Fixing the beauty of nature to fiber is like capturing it in time.  Flowers that would otherwise die and fade from memory, can be used to extract the color, and fashion into a piece you can have and remember for years to come.  These red daylilies grow outside the mansion where I work.

Photo by RaeRaggs

Photo by David Wesley

Another thing that is fascinating is that you don't always get the results you expect.  The same dye can have a different effect depending if you use cotton, wool, silk, iron mordant, alum mordant, etc.  This is lovely green is a result of using silk and alum in my daylily dye pot.