Dock Leaves

I'd had my eye on a big patch of dock leaves in disturbed ground close to Loughton Brook for a couple of weeks, but I only got around to picking them yesterday afternoon. To my chagrin, the bugs had got there before me, and many of the leaves had been eaten into holes. Fortunately, I was able to gather fresh young leaves along the margin of the brook, and in some clumps of nettles close by.

The results from the dock leaf bath looked unpromising to start with, but after about half an hour I could see some interesting colours developing, so I added a skein of 'thick and thin' wool mordanted with alum, to see what that gave me. The results are quite gratifying. From the left, 'thick and thin' mordanted with alum, then my regular yarn mordanted with alum, copper, alum+tin and alum+iron. I plan to carry on dyeing with young plant materials as well as trying the more complex two stage process to make Lincoln Green.