Some long time ago in my earliest explorations of All Things Natural and Organic [read When I Was a Hippie] I found myself enchanted with the notion of creating dyes from my natural surroundings. While I was partially successful, with the lack of good information available at the time, it was a hard path to sustain. If only I’d had Sasha Duerr’s new The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes to guide me! This seminal work is probably the only book you would ever need to spend weeks or months or years exploring the latent possibilities of the plants you find in your own environment as sources of rich and wondrous color. What a gift!

The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes is a comprehensive manual for fully exploring dyeing with plants. These plant sources can be drawn from your neighborhood streets, vacant lots, or your own backyard!

Here are some of the plants you are familiar with that can be used for dying fabrics, yarns, ribbons, sheepswool, silk, cashmere, alpaca, and angora (from bunnies!) as well as many other natural fibers.

Jasmine–makes light yellows and pale greens
Rose hips–create a rosy-beige
Lavender–makes shades from light beige to cool purple-grey
Rosemary–makes greens to browns
Elderberry–yields shades of purple, blue and grey
Sour grass–makes a bright yellow
Japanese maple–creates a silvery grey when used with iron (directions included)
Comfrey–makes light to deep greens

Old lace bathed in black walnut hulls and mint

Brilliant blue dye created from red cabbage!

One of the sections of the book I found particularly inspiring spoke of creating small “spiral gardens,” rather a garden within a garden where you might grow plants specifically for your dyeing processes.

A Spiral Dye Garden
A unique way of creating a raised-bed garden is by making it a spiral garden…a round garden made from a spiral of rocks that winds upward, enclosing the soil and warming and dehumidifying it…Spiral gardens can be quite fun to have on a school ground or in the community, since they add both practicality and creativity to the garden landscape.

Everything you need to know has been included in this book, including an extensive list of equipment one needs to get started. The list includes:

*stainless steel pots of different sizes
*a mortar and pestle
*glass jars for mordant solutions (which fix the dyes)
*a sturdy drying rack
*plastic buckets for soaking, washing and rinsing fibers
*glass measuring cups in a variety of sizes
*stainless steel strainers

Author Sasha Duerr was raised on a Christmas tree farm in Maine and in Hawaii. Her earliest roots lie in nature. Out of this rootedness sprouted an artist determined to stick with her natural instincts. She has done much work to provide us with such a fine resource and many will be inspired by her teachings.

Love and gardening blessings,
Kathryn xooxoo

Book News: I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to Baker Creek Seed Bank in Petaluma; to Bookshop Santa Cruz, who selected my book as a Staff Favorite!; to Kepler’s in Menlo Park; to Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino village; to Book Depot in Mill Valley and to all the Copperfield’s Bookstores in Sonoma and Napa for selling so many copies of Plant Whatever Brings You Joy: Blessed Wisdom from the Garden. What a wonderful launch for my book! Thanks so much to all of you and to all of my wonderful readers!

Posted on March 6th, 2011 by Kathryn
Filed under: Book Notes | 10 Comments »

Dear Readers: By now many of you have learned that my new book Plant Whatever Brings You Joy: Blessed Wisdom from the Garden is built around 52 lessons or metaphors from the garden. The chapter which became the name of the book–and ultimately the name of this blog–here follows. Enjoy!

Plant Whatever Brings You Joy!

I had thought I would never live in a city again, having put in time in both San Francisco and Mexico City, but Amsterdam proved to be the exception. It was quite safe, clean, interesting, and charming. Still, after two years passed, I began to grow restless with being in an urban environment. Short trips to the small charming town of Marken broke up the tension of city living, but it was not enough.

In my neighborhood the building of flats across the street had been torn down, leaving a gaping hole as my view. Small trees had been planted at the edge of the broad sidewalks, but we were, when it came down to it, surrounded by cement. My restlessness with the situation grew to agitation. Coupled with the fact we were in an urban environment was the undeniable fact that we were still, after two years, outsiders. By now Antonia spoke fluent Dutch, but she remained somewhat isolated. Her mother was a foreigner. Our neighbors consisted of born-and-bred Dutchmen and a small number of Turkish families (also tagged as forever being foreigners in the eyes of the locals). We were the Americans.

One afternoon I looked out at the brick and concrete landscape, nearly exasperated, and I suddenly heard a voice in me say, “If you don’t like it, change it. But don’t complain about it anymore.” I was startled to hear this voice, but I recognized instantly that it was the truth of the situation.

I went downstairs and examined the sidewalk. Dutch sidewalks are made of very very large (but not deep) cement blocks manufactured elsewhere and then laid down on sand. What I discovered by poking around is that while they are very heavy, they could be removed. A liberating realization! Standing and staring at the broad sidewalk reaching from the wall of our building to the curb, I suddenly envisioned how convenient it would be to remove the blocks just adjacent to the wall. And, once removed, the exposed earth would create a perfect sized garden plot! Interesting!

I advised my landlord, who lived downstairs, what I intended to do. No protest from him. I enlisted the help of a couple of male friends, and they were able to pry up four of the large cement blocks in front of our building and move them to the area behind our flat (just in case the City Fathers ever wanted them put back). I dug up the sand underneath to a depth of about two feet. Perfect. Antonia and I filled up the hole I had made with fresh earth. I began to purchase flowering plants and gradually filled the earthen area with their living beauty.

And a strange thing happened. Strangers began appearing at the door of my flat. Strangers who had previously shied away from us “foreigners”. Some brought plants. And some shoved money into my hands! I was dumbfounded, amazed and delighted!

Children showed up to help set the plants in the ground. Soon we had our garden! We had made a difference in our neighborhood. Everyone could see and enjoy the beauty. It made my heart burst with joy. The momentum from that single action was so unexpected.

One evening an elderly woman came to the door and told me she lived down the street and that her husband was an invalid who sat inside all day. Watching out the window was one of his main activities. She asked humbly if we would consider coming down to their flat and planting another garden, which we did.

This simple act of the willingness to go against the grain, to step outside the box, to challenge the way things had always been done proved to be a deeply transformational experience for both me and my daughter, and the heartstrings that surrounded this vision and action extended into the hearts and minds and eyes of a neighborhood.

What seeds of joy might you plant that would transform your life and those around you? What commitment would it take? What risk? What courage? What vision have you discounted as impossible? What would you gain by doing something about it and what might you lose by not?

oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Book News! Just received a lovely tweet from Bookshop Santa Cruz advising me that Plant Whatever Brings You Joy has been added to the Staff Favorite non-fiction shelf!!

If you have enjoyed this story and would be interested in reading more such stories please visit Estrella Catarina. Thank you! Kathryn xoxo

Posted on February 12th, 2011 by Kathryn
Filed under: People at Life | 11 Comments »