Where Art and Nature Blossom
The Shire
My backyard native plant habitat supports local fauna and flora and supplies natural plant dyes for spun wool and fiber for weaving and cordage. Check in for insights on environmental restoration.
Fiber Dying & Dye Plants
The Colonial & Post-Revolutionary Era Dye Garden
Textiles were treasured for survival in Colonial America. They were used for clothes, home goods/furnishings, insulation, building materials, and farming and livestock tools. Until the Revolution, the colonies mostly imported textiles from Britain that were sourced from India, China, and England. It was less costly and labor-intensive to import textiles than produce them in the colonies. Fiber and textile production, dying, weaving, and fiber arts, however, became Revolutionary activities in the call for Independence. Fiber processing and textile production, including the cultivation of dye plants, happened on the industrial level as well as the home front as colonialists rebelled against taxation without representation and forged pathways to an independent United States.
We no longer use plant-based dyes to color the clothes we wear. Technology and modern chemistry led to the development of synthetic dyes--as well as synthetic fabrics. But the craft of natural textile dying remains a fascinating cottage-core activity. I began foraging and experimenting with dye plants in about 2018. In 2025, as part of my Master Gardener internship, I had the opportunity to co-present a demonstration on Colonial Dye Plants at the Haddam Historical Society Thankful Arnold House in Haddam, Connecticut. The following year, I had invitations to give similar presentations at other sites in the Connecticut Shoreline area. See below for a free pdf download that is an info-packed supplement to my The Colonial & Post-Revolutionary Era Dye Garden presentation.
Photo Gallery
Cordage fiber extracted from milkweed stalks and bittersweet vine.
The vibrant color you can get from onion skin dye
An Irish crochet project from fiber (blends of wool, yak, and silk) dyed with various local plants.
Fingerless gloves , raw and dyed spun flax
Crocheted purse with wool/silk blend embelllishments dyed with pokeweed berries and onion skin.
Wool steeping in a pokeweed berry ferment.
Wool dyed using oak pollen catkins and spun into yarn on an electric spinning wheel
Folks, I am not sure what I dyed to get this gorgeous yellow. I am pretty sure it is a wool/silk blend.
Wool dyed & spun. Left curly dock, middle pokeweed using pickling method, right rose petals.
An assortment of hand spun wool dyed with natural plant pigments, including oak pollen, celandine, onion skin, curly dock, roses, and other flora.
Pokeweed ink