Red Oak Leaves

The leaves on my red oak are especially brilliant this year, I suspect it is due to the late season rains after a long hot drought this summer.  I will make some bundles using the bright yellow leaves this week and will report back on the colors achieved.

oak leaf vats

It's time to start thinking about putting these oak leaf and acorn vats away for the winter.

Oak Cloth Part 2

Oak Cloth Part 1

Small Heart Shape

Detail from Oak Leaf Cloth

Oak Leaf Experiment

Posted updates plus video over at the Natural Surface Network in the Compost Dyeing Group!  You have to be a member of the network to view the group, membership is free.

Oak Cloth Update

The water is black!

Oak Leaf Cloth

I wasn't too thrilled about having our oak trees pruned in July but it needed to be done as I could no longer see to safely back out of the driveway, oak trees pick the darnest time to have a growth spurt.  So I pulled a bunch of the red oak and burr oak leaves aside in addition to some acorns and put them in a metal pan until I was ready to use them.  And then it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained.  The end result was an oak leaf acorn soup.  So today I will dye some cotton yardage and see what I come up with.

I added some rusted coffee tin lids in between the layers of fabric as I shoved it into a five gallon plastic bucket.

Final layer of oak leaves, branches, and acorns.

Topped off with rain water, that had been sitting for several days in another bucket, and a lid to keep the skeeters out.

Oak Galls

Oak Leaves with Galls