Welcome

Hello!  Welcome to the Valleymaker Journal, Issue 1.  In these monthly posts,  I hope to share with you all things relating to Valleymaker, from tutorials on how to use the products, to step-by-step instructions on trying botanical dyeing yourself, to  features on special dye-plants, sharing visits to Alpaca and Heritage sheep studs, as well as finding out about upcoming events or new product releases and heaps of other exciting projects.

I’d love you to join me on this journey so be sure to join the mailing list to never miss an issue. I promise not to bombard your inbox with messages!

This issue is a little introduction to Valleymaker and to the wonderful world of botanical dyeing.  

Valleymaker is first and foremost a project committed to the practise and process of botanical dyeing.  It really is a cover or front for my total obsession with creating colours from plants!  It came about from a problem I started to have of an ever growing collection of my hand-dyed yarns, too large for one person to ever get through.  What to do with all these precious colours? Thus, Valleymaker was born.

Dyeing with plants is a slow and mesmerising process.  I sometimes feel like a witch and her cauldron brewing a magical potion!  From growing or gathering the plants, preparing the yarns and fibres correctly, to creating a dye bath and turning white yarn into a glowing, beautiful colour; the experience is always thrilling, often unpredictable and totally addictive for me. I believe botanically dyed colours are gentler on the eye and tend to harmonise more readily with one another.

Obtaining colour from the leaves, flowers, bark or roots of various plants such as madder, weld, indigo or onion skins; from insects such as cochineal and lac; or from fungi or lichen, has a rich and ancient history.

I begin the process by mordanting the fibre. The mordant (often a metallic salt) acts as a bond between the dyestuff and the fibre to be dyed and also increases the fastness of the fibre and can enhance the intensity of a colour. I do this step separately before I dye my fibres.  Only natural protein (animal) or cellulose (plant) fibres can be dyed in this way. Synthetic fibres are unresponsive to natural dyes.

Weld plants going to seed

Hopi Sunflowers reaching for the sky

Most of my dyestuff comes from my own dye garden and through foraging in my local area. I tend to use the term ‘botanical dyeing’ or ‘plant dyeing’, as opposed to natural dyeing, as I use plants that I have gathered, rather than purchasing dried forms that are usually imported (I have made a small exception to this rule in my speckle dyed yarns that I incorporate into the kits sometimes which might include small amounts of sustainably sourced logwood, lac or cochineal extract as nothing quite compares to their intensity of colour or reliability).

I grow dye plants such as madder (my favourite dye plant and definitely a future dye plant focused issue!), weld, hopi sunflowers, bloody dock, dyer’s chamomile, yarrow, malabar spinach berries, goldenrod, rosehips and woad in my own garden.

I follow the seasons and collect different plants when they flower, such as oxalis flowers in winter, prunus leaves and wattle blossom in early spring, and pomegranate rinds in autumn. I also enjoy using roadside weeds which are readily available or scraps from our vegie patch such as carrot plant tops or the outer leaves of purple cabbages. I also make the most of local council prunings and storm windfall.

First harvest of my three year old madder roots

Fallen black walnut hulls

The other rich source of dye materials come from my dad’s incredible bush property where we stay a couple of times a year. I collect fallen black walnut hulls, bracken fern leaves, tea tree leaves, banksia heads, various eucalyptus leaves or whatever else might be worth experimenting with from his incredible garden.

Botanical dyeing does not use chemicals. My exhausted dye baths are tipped onto my lawn. The dye plants are put into the compost once used.  In fact, the fibres themselves can be composted eventually when it is beyond personal possession, creating a closed loop system of production.

I love using materials and processes that do not harm the environment, nor me as the dyer or the customer who wears or works with my yarns. I believe we need to make a global shift in returning to natural dyeing in the future as oposed to chemical dyeing, if we wish to work with our planet and a sustainable future. The fashion industry is responsible for a huge output of carbon emissions each year and chemical dyes generate massive levels of pollution. I feel we need to move away from using toxic chemicals in fibre growing and production, as well as in the dyeing of cloth and yarns. After all, there is an alternative!

Valleymaker sets out to create goods of beauty, quality and distinction with great passion, pride and commitment. To celebrate the qualities of slow craft that enable deeper connections with natural materials and processes and to do no harm to our fragile planet.

Botanical dyeing offers me so much. I feel a deeper connection to the seasons, the plants in my local region, and to my garden.

I look forward to sharing my botanical adventures with you in the coming seasons.