In preparation I have been experimenting with common plants to see what colours can be achieved. In the local park there are plenty of plants to try out. Cow parsley and dock (sorrel) were the ones on test recently.

I hope it was cow parsley anyway, Google lens wasn’t sure if it was hemlock or a type of chervil (cow parsely). Hoping that I wasn’t going to go the same route as Socrates I brewed up the innocent cow parsley (yes I had found out by now that it was safe).  The liquid didn’t look promising, unlike the sorrel liquid that was already a rich golden colour. Steeping the ripped leaves overnight didn’t improve it much either.

However, once the wool fabric had been immersed and heated the colour did come through. I tried an alkaline modifier on the sorrel to try to warm the brown up, and an acid on the sorrel to enhance the green. Im not sure either made much difference!