Yesterday morning was my first time this year that I've had T-shirt weather to walk the dogs. About half of the desert peach blooms were halted by the last snow, but now the bitter brush has begun to bloom. Up close it's clearly a yellow blossom.
From a distance the bushes have an apple green appearance, not yellow at all. It took me a long time to see the colors in the high desert landscape, but there are a remarkable variety of greens. Sage is still my favorite of them all.
I thought this was a sweet display of color. It's pretty unusual for both desert peach and bitter brush to share space like this. One will choke the other out. In this case, the peach is losing.
These are the yellows that I got from natural dyes last year with an alum mordant. I'm planning to put them in indigo. From left to right, they are rabbit brush, cottonwood, lupin and the two on the right are lupin that I mordanted in alum but cooked in a cast iron pot to sadden. I look forward to seeing the different greens I'll get. I haven't found the secret of getting anything but yellow from natural dyes from plants that I harvest here. I have an area in the front yarn that I've prepared for madder roots that both Marilyn and Allison have offered. At least madder won't be yellow.
2 comments:
I love Nevada! I haven't had a visit over in too long; just a few quick rushes through Reno and environs; soon! What kind of weather did you get today? There have been times of torrential rain and even thunder this afternoon.
I am forever in wonder that you can collect rabbitbrush and still breath! I can almost still smell it simmering from that Spinster's retreat dyebath several years ago.
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