What lingers in colour

Cochineal, lac, madder, onion and eucalyptus bark dyed wool and then spun. I’ve been pairing the wool top as I dye it with fine silk mohar yarn in the dye pot, which is lovely held together when knitted with my hand spun yarn.

When I step back from the dye pot, I often find myself wondering: what is it that truly remains in the wool once it’s dry? The colour, yes, molecules of bark, leaves, fruit or cochineal bound into fibre. But is that all?

Each skein I dye holds more than its hue. It carries the day it was made: the coolness of a morning walk, the smell of cracked eucalyptus leaf, the squeeze of lemon that tipped the colour towards brightness. These things don’t show themselves to the eye, but they stay in the hands of the maker, my hands and memories of days.

My ancestors and ancient people may have known this instinctively. When I look at the soft pinks of avocado peel or the warm siennas of onion skins, I imagine people of long ago dressed not in dusty greys, as we sometimes assume, but in joyful, delicate colours, hues that caught the light and carried the faint scent of the plants that made them.

The memory of a dye bath is not something you can bottle or explain in full. You only really know it because you were there. But a trace remains: in the gentleness of a colour, in the way it is worn, gifted, or held. Perhaps that’s what makes naturally dyed textiles feel alive, they are not only dyed; they are steeped in time, patience, and attention.