I have been working on one particular piece this week that I am currently calling Purple Spect(ta)re, it is almost finished except I can’t find a good red. There are lots of red flowers in our garden and around, but none of them give a real red color on the canvas, most turn purple or at best some form of burgundy.

I’ve done some research and found a few sites that talk about plant dyes but most of them require processing to get to the color and that isn’t what Scrying is all about for me.

I have turned to berries to try and find the red and found something that kind of works in what Lisa refers to as an Oregon Berry, I don’t know if that is its real name or not, but since I don’t know the names of most flowers I refer to her expertise to tell me what it is that I am messing with most of the time.

The Oregon Berry did give me a bit of a red, but also a brown, it was quite bizarre the way it turned out, but strangely it worked, at least enough for me to be satisfied with it, but now its effects have left me needing a black, which I haven’t come across in anything I have used thus far.

That being said, for those that come here looking for information on plant dyes, I’ll pass along these links that I found that give recommendations on how to get various colors by boiling and other processing methods.

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/crafts/crafts-basics/naturaldyes.html

http://autonopedia.org/crafts_and_technology/Fabric_and_Dyes/List_Of_Plant_Dyes_By_Colour.html

And this book that seemed to be specifically for those of you wanting to die yarns, etc
Colours from Nature, Bobbi A McRae, Storey, 1993