Louise A Clarke textile Artist

Nettles are well known for their ability to sting but did you know they are well known for their eco-dyeing abilities. I’ve never used them as a dye so I thought with the abundance of them this summer I couldn’t pass up the chance to give it a go.

I got my garden gloves out, my scissors and a big basket and I went down the road to Alder Forest and started my foraging. I always make sure that when I forage I don’t take everything from one plant, I try to spread out my pickings from different mother stems and areas of the forest. I am aware that with the amount of nettles I could easily take a whole section and nobody would care or even notice. But for me the forest isn’t just for my use, it has its own eco-system and those nettles are homes to insects, food for birds, hideaways for foxes and when summer passes the nettles die away and become food for fungi systems and nests for hedgehogs.

Once I had a full basket and only a couple of stings, I made my way home, got the kettle on and pans out and I began my wait to see what the nettles had in store for me. The liquid became this beautiful green and after an hour I added some cotton and silk pieces to explore how the dye reacted with these fabrics. Now I know traditional eco-dyers would be shuddering right now, but I left the nettles in the water with the fabrics as I wanted to see how contact with the leaves changes the process in any way and boy did it.

I love it when happy accidents or experiments create such unexpected results first time around. Where there was contact, there was these amazing blob like patterns and the colour still had a green tinge to it, but it had a browner shade now. As the fabric dried there became no green to it at all and it became this golden brown/cream colour and the silk fabric seemed to shine and reflect the light in a completely different way.

I need to explore this more and I can’t wait to see how this develops further in my art journey.