Colors from Coleus

by Judith Towers

In 2002 I tried a natural dye experiment with Coleus, 'Purple Duckfoot', Solenostemon scutellarriodes. I simmered a plastic bag full of the cut-up leaves and stems in two gallons of water for about an hour. After straining out the plant parts the liquid was very dark, intense blue-violet. When I added a pinch of tin the dye liquor instantly turned almost navy blue.

The following day I added two teaspoons of alum and some silk, cotton, hemp, and wool, simmered all for an hour, cooled them in the pot and let them remain in the dye for two days. The cotton and hemp were purple, and silk was the darkest of all. The wool appeared pale and dingy gray. I gave it an ammonia rinse  (1 or two tablespoons in the rinse water) and was pleased to see a bright moss green. No ammonia rinse was given to the cotton, hemp or silk.

Later I was given a large contractor bucket packed with dark purple coleus leaves, larger than the ones I used before, a different variety named 'Colored Dark Star'. The results were exciting.

The day before I had processed the leaves exactly as before and strained them out of the dye liquor. On dye day Jan and I  began to heat the pot, added ¼ teaspoon of tin, found that the liquid turned blue-violet, then added two teaspoons of alum and stirred to mix. Into the pot we put tussah silk, bombyx silk, soysilk, bamboo fiber, a skein of fine tussah silk, and a small sample of Gulf Coast Native fleece, some mixtures of silk/wool, and tiny sample skeins of mercerized cotton and bamboo.
Look what we got!