These fabrics & muka pieces are from the Tawa* leaf dye-bath we made in March 2021.
​We used the same cotton fabrics as the other dyebaths of this seasons explorations.
​
​Beautiful, soft, gentle shades of honey-yellow which shifted to greens after being in the paru.

. . . . and then of course there was a piece of silk that went in, ha - couldn't resist !

& now that it's May & i {think} know it's time to stop.

I thought i would stop a couple of weeks ago but then we gathered more Hīnau leaves & paru to do one final thing . . .  and then i couldn't bear the thought of wasting the dyebath nor the paru & now its May 9th, it's cold, it's raining & my heart (& hands) are asking why ?! Why did you keep going ?!

I'll tell you about the 'final thing' in another post - right now I need a cuppa 

mā te wā
​xxx

If I were going to write a book on natural dyes, using NZ native botanicals, this image would be the cover. 

This time of the year, December to March/April, has become our season for natural dyeing using our NZ native botanicals. 
It's warm, the days are long & summer in to autumn is when the plants we use seem to be at their best.
Birds (& most insects too I think) are past the busy time of their breeding season & if there is an abundance we feel it's ok for us to be gathering plant based resources*

So far this season we have made several dye baths from different parts of 4 different plants**
The first two dye baths were made from leaves of Tānekaha & Hīnau.
We collected the fallen leaves from under the trees.  
We dyed white cotton calico, muslin netting & muka in all the dye baths.
we also dyed a few odds & ends which I've mentioned separately in the relevant section.

The third dye bath was from the green prunings of some young Tōtara. 
This dyebath took quite some time before there seemed to be enough colour within it & finally after 5 days we obtained beautiful soft peachy colours from it. ​

As part of the exploration we put some fabric & muka from these 3 in to paru***

​We obtained brown, as expected from the Tānekaha & a dark grey/green black, as expected from the Hīnau. 
Initially the colour from the Tōtara after being in the paru was a gorgeous soft grey however this has shifted to a gentle brown.
​It’s an absolutely beautiful colour & I must admit it’s actually what I had anticipated we might obtain from Tōtara, simply because it’s a conifer. 

It’ll be interesting to experiment with dried branches & leaves of Tōtara in the future. ​

We collected fallen berries from the Tawa trees which are behind the shed.
It’s been a super abundant season & although we’ve had flocks of kererū coming & going, coming & going, there have still been many berries falling to the ground.  

Once the berries are on the ground we noticed nothing eats them, in fact, nothing even touches them so we decided it would be ok to collect some & make a dye bath. ​

*We gather the dried leaves, prunings & berries from trees we have on our property. 
The Tawa are mature forest trees on the perimeter of our covenanted bush area. 
The other trees we gather from are all part of a wetland restoration project we started about 16 years ago when we retired a hectare of badly degraded land & started planting native trees in to that area.
It’s such a wonderful thing to be able to watch the changes over the years, to know that we have helped to create this & in return are being given this abundant resource, simply by being patient & nurturing the area back to health.

**Here's a list of the trees we've gathered from this season
​Tānekaha: Phyllocladus trichomanoides
Hīnau: Elaeocarpus dentatus
Tōtara: Podocarpus totara
Tawa: Beilschmiedia tawa 

***Paru is iron rich mud which is used for iron tannate dyeing & traditionally, by Māori, used to dye muka

a gift of basalt waited for a year
under his tree
after his passing

now formed into a beautiful vessel
a place for water to swirl
or to contain fire as Lou himself would have done

para planted in the gully to the west
kahikatea planted in the gully to the east

kōwhai in a row
one for each of us
signifying home

pūriri timber
rescued from the firewood pile
shaped & sanded into a landform

remembering a time past
layers below where we now walk
​
sawdust
a strong & pungent signature of the tree
unexpectedly a soft yellow
​strangely unlike it's own flowers
or leaves
or bark

mixed with water & gently heated
immersing a few fibres
exploring the possibility of colour

a fortuitous find of an historic article
with scant reference to altering the pH
by rolling in ash

hesitantly adding the ash water
& immediately falling in love

celebrating a new found knowledge
heart heavy with the absence of our friend
unable to share in person the joy & the triumph

forever grateful
despite the brevity
for a truely magical friendship

waiata of farewell
floating languidly on the wind