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Foraging for Color: Take a Walk with a Montana Dyer
Madeline finds color in woodlands and kitchen cupboards—and you can, too.
Fiber artist Madeline Keller-King lives in northwest Montana with her family, surrounded by forest. She uses the natural dyestuffs she sustainably gleans from the landscape to dye Montana-grown wool. Madeline is passionate about sharing this connection to materials and teaches natural dye workshops, often including dye materials that can be foraged in wild and urban landscapes, such as onion skins and avocado pits. The dye process is the same for many of these materials, and subscribers will find an eBook at the end, Easy Peasy Natural Dyeing, which includes an article by Madeline on dyeing with onion skins. Enjoy! —Editors
Now that the warm days of summer are upon us, and nature is showing off her bounty in full force, we have to take advantage of nature’s colors while we can, don’t we? This is a season to be on the go, and even as a wool-inclined knitter, yarn is no less on my mind than it is in other seasons.
I’ve found new ways to spend my time out in nature tying my fiber work to the places I live and visit. I search for color on my walks—and not just the lovely splashes that wildflowers add into the landscape—but the often humble plants that will produce color in a dyepot.
Get a closer look! Click the video below to open it in full-screen mode.
Madeline identifies a variety of dye plants to be used on her yarns.
Seeing with Fresh Eyes
Foraging is a lovely way to practice being grounded in the present, paying attention to the world around you as you go. Foraging for most things usually takes time and patience with yourself, even for someone who knows what they’re looking for, even when armed with plant images and descriptions of ideal growing conditions. When the whole of the wood is green, it can be easy to miss things. Once it happens though—when you discover a plant you were looking for—you develop an eye for it. Where I live, nettles eluded me for more than a couple of seasons, but once I found them and watched them grow for a year, it happened. The key is to look for them in the early spring when they are not overshadowed by the tall grasses that often grow with them. Now I see nettles everywhere!
Left: In loamier environments nettles, can be easy to spot, especially when they’ve gone to seed like this example. Wear gloves when harvesting—they sting until you wipe down the stem. Right: Expect yellows and greens (with an iron modifier) from this plant.
Each wander I take down to the river and back near my home has become a kind of check-in—I see what’s abundant, what’s blooming. The weather and the slightly shifting plant populations will inform my yarn palette for the rest of the year. When I combine dyes this way with local millspun yarns, it really makes me feel like I’ve captured a sense of place.
Madeline and her pup Runi check in on the production of cones on an alder tree by the Tobacco River in northwestern Montana.
Surprising Color
Color can come from surprising sources. For example, if you’re looking for something easy to spot and enjoy lovely warm browns in your yarns, you can set out with a basket to gather some tannin-rich pine cones.
Fiber artist Madeline Keller-King lives in northwest Montana with her family, surrounded by forest. She uses the natural dyestuffs she sustainably gleans from the landscape to dye Montana-grown wool. Madeline is passionate about sharing this connection to materials and teaches natural dye workshops, often including dye materials that can be foraged in wild and urban landscapes, such as onion skins and avocado pits. The dye process is the same for many of these materials, and subscribers will find an eBook at the end, Easy Peasy Natural Dyeing, which includes an article by Madeline on dyeing with onion skins. Enjoy! —Editors
Now that the warm days of summer are upon us, and nature is showing off her bounty in full force, we have to take advantage of nature’s colors while we can, don’t we? This is a season to be on the go, and even as a wool-inclined knitter, yarn is no less on my mind than it is in other seasons.
I’ve found new ways to spend my time out in nature tying my fiber work to the places I live and visit. I search for color on my walks—and not just the lovely splashes that wildflowers add into the landscape—but the often humble plants that will produce color in a dyepot.
Get a closer look! Click the video below to open it in full-screen mode.
Madeline identifies a variety of dye plants to be used on her yarns.
Seeing with Fresh Eyes
Foraging is a lovely way to practice being grounded in the present, paying attention to the world around you as you go. Foraging for most things usually takes time and patience with yourself, even for someone who knows what they’re looking for, even when armed with plant images and descriptions of ideal growing conditions. When the whole of the wood is green, it can be easy to miss things. Once it happens though—when you discover a plant you were looking for—you develop an eye for it. Where I live, nettles eluded me for more than a couple of seasons, but once I found them and watched them grow for a year, it happened. The key is to look for them in the early spring when they are not overshadowed by the tall grasses that often grow with them. Now I see nettles everywhere!
Left: In loamier environments nettles, can be easy to spot, especially when they’ve gone to seed like this example. Wear gloves when harvesting—they sting until you wipe down the stem. Right: Expect yellows and greens (with an iron modifier) from this plant.
Each wander I take down to the river and back near my home has become a kind of check-in—I see what’s abundant, what’s blooming. The weather and the slightly shifting plant populations will inform my yarn palette for the rest of the year. When I combine dyes this way with local millspun yarns, it really makes me feel like I’ve captured a sense of place.
Madeline and her pup Runi check in on the production of cones on an alder tree by the Tobacco River in northwestern Montana.
Surprising Color
Color can come from surprising sources. For example, if you’re looking for something easy to spot and enjoy lovely warm browns in your yarns, you can set out with a basket to gather some tannin-rich pine cones.[PAYWALL] Don’t live in an area with a lot of conifers? Alder cones will do, or acorns if you’re surrounded by oaks.
If you live in a more urban area, you can forage from your kitchen or grocery store—onion skins and avocado pits and skins are great sources of dye. And, relentless forager that I am, I fully confess to helping with the upkeep of flower beds outside my doctors’ offices, collecting the spent marigolds and cosmos blossoms on my way out.
The color produced by dyestuffs are famously shifty. Yarrow, for example, will yield color at any stage of growth and with any part of the plant. However, fresh blooms, dried blooms, and leaves will all produce different shades.
Get a closer look! Click on any image in the gallery below to open it in full-screen mode.
Clockwise from top left: While Madeline doesn’t recommend harvesting lichens from trees, many, like this Usnea lichen, will give lovely colors on wool and silk; she often comes home with her pockets full of wind-fallen bits she’s found on the ground. Madeline’s basket after her walk, filled with yarrow flowers and some mullein—both of which she’ll dry to use in her dyepots later. Millspun Montana Targhee yarn from GoldieKnots Montana has been dyed with the plants pictured: yarrow produced the yellow, and fir cones the warm brown. If it’s not easy for you to get to the woods, try deadheading flowers around town, or grow a few of your own to save for a future dyepot; this jar of dried cosmos has flowers from both Madeline’s garden and pots she’s come across in town.
Getting Ready to Dye
From there, I make my way home with a basket full of treasures and either lay things out to dry for storage or create a dyebath. The basics of using plant dyes are essentially making a tea with your plant matter (dyer’s tip: try and keep it just below a simmer for at least an hour; sometimes overheating shifts colors toward tan or beige). After it cools, add your yarn to the dyepot and reheat (be careful with temperatures here—wool felts!). Adding in white yarn and beginning to see color develop after a few minutes in the pot always seems like magic is occurring, and it never gets old. For some dyestuffs, it’s just that easy: make a tea and add your yarn. For other dyestuffs to adhere to your yarn, a mordant is needed. Find instructions in the ebook below.
This three-ply Montana Targhee Wool millspun yarn is round and very bouncy, and the yellow achieved from the yarrow dyepot is both cheery and light. These put together are a perfect combination for knitting up cables that will really pop, especially after blocking. Shown here is the beginning of Madeline’s improvisational cables scarf.
The next time you’re thinking of heading out for a wander, why not do a quick online search for common dye plants to look out for in your area and see what you can find? I promise, when the seasons shift and you pick up that yarn—whatever the color—it will feel a bit like you’re knitting up a piece of summertime.
Madeline Keller-King is a fiber artist and natural dyer who lives in the woods of northwestern Montana in the company of her spouse and family of pups. You can follow her adventures on social media where she goes by @woolywitchofthewest.
Are you curious about natural dyeing but have yet to give it a try? We’d like to help you get started!
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Easy Peasy Natural Dyeing PDF
Let us help smooth your path into natural dyeing with Easy Peasy Natural Dyeing. Three experienced dyers offer some easy ways to get started with natural dyes. Learn how to use common grocery items like onion skins, alum, and vinegar with Madeline Keller-King. Then Dagmar Klos encourages you to dip into your stash yarns to create a cohesive palette by overdyeing with tea, black walnuts, and marigolds. And, finally, Martha Owen shares her “magic pot” method of combining multiple dyestuffs for a fun multicolor effect.
Click here to view and print a PDF download of Easy Peasy Natural Dyeing.
