Dandelion experiments

Well we have a huge crop of dandelions growing in Ottawa right now so I thought I would use some of them in my artwork. 

First of all, even though people seem to despise them, dandelions are a hugely medicinal plant.  The leaves can be eaten fresh in salads in the spring and are very cleansing for the body.  The roots can be picked in the fall and can be made into tea or roasted and made into a coffee substitute.  Dandelion roots are liver cleansing and are supposed to fight cancer.  The flowers are made into wine and can also apparently be eaten.

But we have a ton of flowers right now so I have been picking the flowers and making a strong solution of them to dye cotton and a cotton/silk mix of fabric.  Here's a photo of the flowers in my dye pot.   It looks like a bowl of sunshine:)

 Here are my fabrics before they were dyed.   A strip of 100% white cotton and a strip of cotton/silk.   I washed them and soaked them in an alum solution to prepare them for dyeing.  Later I also tried adding alum directly to the dye solution.  The results were pretty much the same.

Here are the fabrics after they were dyed.  A nice soft yellow colour.  You can see the silk dyed a little darker than the cotton.   I'm happy with the results.  I will use these as border fabrics around my botanical(eco)  prints.  I'm glad I could put some of the dandelions to good use.