Foraging for Color: Take a Walk with a Montana Dyer

Fiber artist Madeline Keller-King lives in northwest Montana with her family, surrounded by forest. She uses the natural dyestuffs she sustainably gleans from the landscape to dye Montana-grown wool. Madeline is passionate about sharing this connection to materials and teaches natural dye workshops, often including dye materials that can be foraged in wild and urban landscapes, such as onion skins and avocado pits. The dye process is the same for many of these materials, and subscribers will find an eBook at the end, Easy Peasy Natural Dyeing, which includes an article by Madeline on dyeing with onion skins. Enjoy! —Editors

Now that the warm days of summer are upon us, and nature is showing off her bounty in full force, we have to take advantage of nature’s colors while we can, don’t we? This is a season to be on the go, and even as a wool-inclined knitter, yarn is no less on my mind than it is in other seasons.

I’ve found new ways to spend my time out in nature tying my fiber work to the places I live and visit. I search for color on my walks—and not just the lovely splashes that wildflowers add into the landscape—but the often humble plants that will produce color in a dyepot.

Get a closer look! Click the video below to open it in full-screen mode.

Madeline identifies a variety of dye plants to be used on her yarns.

Seeing with Fresh Eyes

Foraging is a lovely way to practice being grounded in the present, paying attention to the world around you as you go. Foraging for most things usually takes time and patience with yourself, even for someone who knows what they’re looking for, even when armed with plant images and descriptions of ideal growing conditions. When the whole of the wood is green, it can be easy to miss things. Once it happens though—when you discover a plant you were looking for—you develop an eye for it. Where I live, nettles eluded me for more than a couple of seasons, but once I found them and watched them grow for a year, it happened. The key is to look for them in the early spring when they are not overshadowed by the tall grasses that often grow with them. Now I see nettles everywhere!

Left: In loamier environments nettles, can be easy to spot, especially when they’ve gone to seed like this example. Wear gloves when harvesting—they sting until you wipe down the stem. Right: Expect yellows and greens (with an iron modifier) from this plant.

Each wander I take down to the river and back near my home has become a kind of check-in—I see what’s abundant, what’s blooming. The weather and the slightly shifting plant populations will inform my yarn palette for the rest of the year. When I combine dyes this way with local millspun yarns, it really makes me feel like I’ve captured a sense of place.

Madeline and her pup Runi check in on the production of cones on an alder tree by the Tobacco River in northwestern Montana.

Surprising Color

Color can come from surprising sources. For example, if you’re looking for something easy to spot and enjoy lovely warm browns in your yarns, you can set out with a basket to gather some tannin-rich pine cones.