A show of respect: utilizing all parts of the plant.
Many folks interested in sustainable and regenerative harvesting practices know about "whole-animal utilization" or "nose-to-tail eating" as a show of respect, skill, and knowledge in their consumption. This practice can be attributed to indigenous cultures and is a way to treat resources with reverence and reciprocity -- harvesting only what is needed and leaving the rest for the earth and other creatures to continue existing in their biosphere. I think this practice of wasting as little as possible, especially from our food streams, can help us build a better cultural connection to our environment and our consumption, and stop over-harvesting from our soils, oceans, streams, and wild places.
This practice means thinking creatively about all the things we throw away or deem "unusable" or "unfit for consumption. For me, my garden is a precious resource and I try to utilize the plants grown in it in as many ways as possible: food, seeds, dried products, compost, pollination, habitat, and creative projects. These carrot tops from my garden yielded a beautiful and huge dye pot.
To get this beautiful sage-green color, I first mordanted the fiber (locally grown and minimally processed Icelandic wool) with a 12% alum solution for about 90 minutes. With the carrot tops from my garden, I made a 2:1 WOF (2 parts plant material, chopped, to one part weight of the fiber I was dyeing) dye pot in a 5 gallon aluminum vessel. This concoction simmered over low heat for about 2 hours in my kitchen, infusing the wool with a yellow hue. I left the carrot tops floating throughout the fibers to get a better color and distribution of the dye. After 2 hours, I pulled the hot skeins from the bath.
My final step in the dyeing process was to shift the dye-bath color from a yellow-green (which was the carrot tops on their own) to a deep, sage green. By adding about 2 TBLS of ferrous sulfate crystals, I was able to create a color I wanted. I added the crystals slowly, a tsp. at a time, mixing and watching the color change in between the additions. When it reached a color I liked, I added back in the skeins of yarn and let them sit in the solution for about 1 hour more.
My final result was about 500 yards of beautiful, soft hand-dyed sage-green wool. The skeins will eventually become a sweater, with all materials going into the piece sourced from Albany county. To me, that process has so much more meaning because of the knowledge, craft, and ethical practices woven into it.
