Celtic Rose Plant Colour Prints
This year, 2026 the focus is on PRINTING with natural plant colour. Making stencils, print pastes and modifying colours.
Theme is Seeds, Symbols and Celtic Design. Dyed pieces and Prints will be utilised for Quilts, and Art Prints, with additional embroidery. New name (and domain) 'CELTIC ROSE' [under construction].
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Stencil print using avocado paste on varied natural dyed Eri silk samples
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Print paste and Triskele stencil under screen ready for printing
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Print pastes mixed: two shades of sienna using avocado
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Hyacinth Dyed silks; Eri and Habotai
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Spiral print (hyacinth greyed) with Indigo seed prints
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Triskele print ideas on fine wool scarf. Sienna avocado paste and Indigo blue
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Four spot roundel spiral, [Dunore 650-850 AD] printed and screen with stencil
Each of the last few years, I've had a new focus with plant dyes. Examples: In 2023, I practiced soya wax 'batik' on immersion dyed silk, 2024 I learnt bundle dyeing, then 2025 I dyed many sample silks, making note of colour changes when using modifiers in palettes. This knowledge now feeds into this year's printing tests with additional mordant and modifying printing.
There is a month-by-month schedule of plant colours' seasonal availability - 2026 starts with HYACINTH BLUE DYE
'Midnight Mystic' is a dark violet hyacinth which on soaking in pond water for 48 hours turns teal, then purple, ready for soaking fabric to turn a staggeringly rich blue. Practice shows that the flowers need to be over a week old for dye to seep out.
Both silk and cotton/linen take the blue, with different mordants beforehand [ alum sulphate and alum acetate respectively. Last year's result on textured Eri silk is only fractionally paler after a year hanging in sunlight. This year's shiny Habotai-10 has dyed darker to start with; a true cobalt rather than more turquoise.
Eri silk soaking in hyacinth blue
Adapted colours with modified prints
Tests with modifiers were on tiny samples last year. These can be referenced to know which modifiers to use for print pastes which will alter the dyed silk colour.
First sample print modifiers are tried on the hyacinth dyed Eri and Habotai silks.