California Buckwheat Dye

This California native plant turns to a beautiful rich red brown color as the summer wanes.

The plant is drought resistant, has pink-white flowers in the spring which turn to it’s current brown color and is loved by honey bees.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/b3bfcb_2544ceb5320a45d39c67034c2a859cfa/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Now I am trying another of it’s benefits, natural dye. As you may have seen in some of my other posts this is another solar dye. Filling a quart glass jar 3/4 full of the buckwheat flower clusters and then filling the jar with water.

Twelve days later flowers were strained out.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/b3bfcb_f09be3de062f4a1e961ad5524bc13ed3/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Then an additional strain through a coffee filter.

Cotton fabric, wool felt and cotton thread soaked for about 20 hours. The watercolor paper was seeped in the dye for about 4 hours.

I really love the cotton fabric results, I'm getting a cozy fall feeling.