Lemonade: Day 7 - Kathi R. - Natural Dye Artist

We're making Community Lemonade in Long Beach, CA.  Come and make lemonade with us!

!  I'm on a 100 day odyssey for community and creativity in Long Beach, CA.  We've got such an amazing city, and I'm a huge fan!  I want to share it with you!  I'm seeking out the creatives and the facilitators of creativity.  The art and the locations that inspire art.  Bringing them to you, here in this blog, and to others, on the streets of Long Beach.

I call it .

Today was Day 7 of Making Lemonade.  I visited the home of Kathi R., natural dye artist.

Kathi's home in Wrigley is evidence of her passion with fiber.  I didn't know where to begin!  I'd gone to Kathi's to talk about natural dyes and to photograph some of her plants, but I got so much more information!

The Passion

Kathi's passion is finding and using color in nature.  She experiments continuously with plants from her garden... drying, chopping, smashing, hammering, curing the leaves, the roots, the flower, the seeds.  Kathi uses these to make fascinating reds, blues and yellows.  A wide range of colors can be produced by varying the amount of plant matter, the mordant, the material you are dyeing.  To the uninitiated, a mordant is a compound that is used to form a complex compound with a dye material which then affixes to the fabric.  Protein fibers such as silk and wool accept dyes more easily than cottons, but cottons can be used with plant dyes.  It's just more work.

Friends, family are always saving items they find and grow for Kathi to work with.  Its what she does.

The Stories

I'm always interested in hearing the stories that a person has to tell.  Stories of youth, of memorable moments, of fun, adventure.  Kathi had a few of her own.

The Orkney Workshop Story

A highlight of Kathi's dyeing history is a natural dye class that she put together and delivered in the Orkney Islands in Scotland some years ago.  The social networking at that time was primarily Yahoo! groups, and Kathi found herself in a worldwide community on these groups.  She was 'discovered' by the organizer of a workshop series, and travelled to Scotland to share her wealth of information.

The workshop was part of an immersion into fiber.  Assessing sheep fleece, shearing (hands on experience), sorting, spinning with wheels and drop spindles, knitting methods (Fair Isle, gansey, lace) and, of course dyeing were all offered.

The participants were from Australia, New Zealand, Tazmania, Norway, Iceland, Europe, the United States... more... and, of course, Scotland.  Kathi shared what she knew and came back with friends worldwide and an appreciation of sheep rearing in Scotland.

Such is the power of the internet.  Able to connect people around the world, to enable a bringing together of like minds.

The Crocheting on the Bus Story

You don't always know where you get the spark.

Kathi does.  Her love of all things fiber began when, at age 5, she sat on the school bus for the first time.  She was next to someone who handed her a hook and showed her how to crochet a chain stitch.  The rest?  Herstory!

Kathi kept finding more fiber subjects to explore, each one better than the next.  The history of fiber, the processing of fiber, the variety of breeds of sheep, different types of fiber, how does each fiber work?  They are not all the same.

And then there is that which makes her stand out... her specialty, the dyeing with natural colors.

The Fiber & The Garden

I pored over Kathi's stash of various wools and silks that she'd dyed over time.  We talked about different types of natural dye matter, and the colors that each could make.  It's in the photos, so, if you care to - look at them and drool!

And then we saw her garden.

Japanese Indigo - There was a large bin of Japanese Indigo plant.  Kathi is working on her new methods for extracting color from this plant.  The traditional methods are labor and time intensive, as they involve fermentation of the dried leaves over several months.  And there is the problem of the smell.  Kathi's method involves fresh leaves, and is still being developed.

Purple Corn Husks - Hanging in the kitchen were several cobs of purple corn, with purple husks.  Red, purple, periwinkle are all colors that she has otained from these husks, but the color is fugitive... disappears... in this case to a grey.  For that batch of purple corn husk dyed wool, it happened slowly over 3 years.  So we know that some natural dye colors will be fugitive, and some won't.  It's a matter of learning which plants to use and which plants not to use.  Good to know.

Madder - To the casual visitor, the central point of the garden might be the lovely lemon tree... To the fiber interested, however, it is the large bed of madder at the rear of the garden.  Madder root is an amazing natural colorant and can be used to get a range of reds, browns, peach and creamy colors.  The madder bed is over 25 years old, but a productive madder bed can be established in as little as 3 years.  The older the plant, the thicker the root, the easier it is to add up to a pound in weight.  It takes a pound to do pretty much anything.

Dahlia - If you're trying to make a golden yellow,you can do that with dahlias.  Of course, you will need to accumulate a pound or more of dahlia petals, and that takes more than one plant!  An interesting fact?  Regardless of the color, there is a yellow dye that results.

Others - And of course, there were the red geraniums (whack it on cotton to get pink), lemon tree (natural beige color from the leaves), tomatoes, peach leaves, rosemary, hibiscus.  Many of these can give rise to yellows of various shades.

Some tidbits and things I left with today

• Protein fibers (wool and silk) hold color better than cotton
• You can get a large range of color if you vary the quantity of dyestuffs, the type and quantity of mordant, the material being dyed.
• North Ronaldsay wool is exquisitely soft.  There are just a few people living on this northernmost of the Orkney Islands.  The island is extremely small with an area of only 2.7 square miles. A dyke surrounds the island, to keep the sheep from eating off of the arable land.  They instead feast on seaweed that they find outside the stone wall. (Fascinating!)
• Cochineal, used for red, comes from a scale insect that lives on opuntia cactus.  Most comes from Mexico and Peru.
• Some authors for me to look up: The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing by James Liles (Cotton dyeing) and Eco Colour Botanical dyes for Beautiful Textiles by India Flint (repurposed materials)
• Some sawdust - so that I could try to extract the color
• A new friend, Kathi!
• A bag of lemons for lemonade!!!

And TOMORROW!!!!

Day 8: Michelle Wells and Erik Elstad

Tomorrow I visit with a dynamic duo of curriculum prep, who are currently delivering Shared Science's early engineering summer camp for elementary school students.  This runs concurrently this week with the robotics summer camp, led by Jacqui Viale and Nancy Schmitt.

Want more lemonade? 

Items Needed

Nothing!

Need to contact me?  info@handmadepenguin.com

Trish Tsoiasue writes as herself about creative and maker topics for the Belmont Shore Patch and as Handmade Penguin for the Handmade Penguin Blog.