[Ansteorra-textiles] dye plants

[Nancy Wederstrandt]

At 11:44 PM 9/29/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Clare -
>Wild coreopsis grows all over the place in the spring, and it produces one of
>my favorite natural dye colors - a beautiful rust that has a lot of "depth" to
>it.  Last time we used it in a demonstration, we had premordanted the wool 
>with
>alum.  We used the whole plant (flowers and stems) and it only took a 
>couple of
>handfuls to dye 2 or 3 ounces of wool yarn.  The color transfer starts very
>quickly.

         What color did you achieve with just flowers as opposed to whole 
plant.  Thanks for the information.


>And on to a delicate subject - as a state park employee I have to point out to
>everyone that people are not allowed to collect anything (whether it's plants,
>bugs, arrow points, etc) on state park property.  The only exception is if 
>it's
>to be used for scientific research (requiring a permit) or for things like
>educational demos under the auspicies of the park staff.  It has to do 
>with the
>fact that parks are essentially resource/habitat sanctuaries, with whatever
>exists on them being protected for the future.  It's a stewardship issue.
>There are laws to enforce it, and people have gotten into legal trouble in the
>past because they didn't know they were breaking the law.

         Thank you for the reminder.  Here I am encouraging people to break 
the law.  I do know that people who have lots of cactus in their acreage 
won't mind if you stop and ask to pick bugs off it.  (They do look at you 
oddly.)
Also never pick flowers on a roadway, I believe 200 feet away from the 
road.  It's not just bluebonnets.
Freeland/open grazing is getting harder and harder to pursue.  I use the 
parks for identification a lot.

While we are on the subject, I have to submit my rule of gathering.  You 
only take a quarter.  You leave one quarter for seed, one for the animals 
who graze it (including insects) and one for another gatherer.  Also never 
take from a small amount as that place may already be gathered or the plant 
is having a hard time.  For lichen gathering... never take lichen from a 
living tree but the dead wood.  (I usually gather after a rain anyway when 
they are easy to pull as well as having dead wood lying around.)

My apologies to Corinee for stepping on state toes (grin).  Listen to her 
about this not me!

Regards,

Clare