This post is part of a collaborative natural dye and mapping project with Annie Cholewa called Waysides: Local Colour from Our Home Grounds.

This was my final dye lot for the Waysides project for the near future. Other things are brewing, but the Waysides project will continue to evolve for both Annie and I. Besides, I want to get knitting all these skeins. Being the last one for now, I wanted to make this colour really count. I wanted an absolute show stopper of a colour so I selected my dye source very carefully.

There is a very lovely winding path in our neighbourhood that we call the Crocodile Path. It ends up at a park with piece of crocodile equipment so maybe that is why we call it that or perhaps the name predates the equipment. Who knows? Anyway, the path has been built over an old creek bed that still runs during (rare) flood times right into houses and cars. The path is lined with trees and is noisy with lorikeets, wattlebirds and magpies. They fight for food in the flowers of eucalypts, blackwoods and sheoaks. They defend nesting sites and quarrel for mates. It is a path to meander down, listen and sit. It leads us to the houses of friends, to another local park and a giant remnant River Red Gum.

Amongst the eucalypts is one I was most keen to dye from after reading a Local and Bespoke post. It is called Red Ironbark, Eucalyptus sideroxylon. It is a stately tree with black fissured bark from which can ooze sap the colour of blood. It is not exactly indigenous to this area but is a common parkland planting. They flower around now, anything from a buttery yellow to hot pink. My tree had yellow flowers.

I boiled the leaves for a good few hours as I and other readers have found to be best for eucalypts to release their colour. Alum mordanted, 2 ply handspun English Leicester was then brought to a simmer for an hour, then another, then another.

Yes, my friends, I had made beige again! Did I get my identification wrong? Did I need a tree with pink flowers? Was my tree just feeling sad? I DO NOT KNOW!!!

From left to right, you can see the unmodified skein, followed by the skeins modified with copper solution, iron solution, vinegar and washing soda. Mmm, looks a lot like the last lot only the eucalypt has coarsened the yarn. I felt so disappointed and also very angry.

So, I will turn lightly to the Buddhist causes of suffering at this point…ignorance, attachment and aversion. These are The Three Poisons.

Clearly, ignorance is at play here. I do not know for sure what that tree is, why beige keeps following me and where all the good colours are.

I was attached to a wonderful conclusion, a glory dye, a spectacular discovery.

I have a strong aversion to beige.

Ah, suffering! Apparently, I must look with a beginner’s mind, breathe and embrace the now. Oh look, how interesting, I just made beige again! How extraordinary that such a multiplicity of plants make beige! I will let the colours come, I will let the colours be, I will let the colours go.

I really do need to embrace the inner dye-buddha or I may be at risk of becoming a junked-up-dye-gambler…just one more plant, I know this one will be a winner, just one last simmer and then I will stop. Who knows where that would end?

I also spun up and dyed 100 grams of English Leicester in a 3ply DK weight for Collingwood Children’s Farm. It will be knit up by one of the farmers there into a beanie to demonstrate to the children just what fleece becomes after shearing. It is fortunate that this particular farmer favours the golden hues so prevalent in the Waysides.

Since drafting this post, Jules from Woollenflower has suggested that my beige results from this eucalypt might be because I collected during winter after a very wet autumn. Eucalyptus dye colours intensify with dryness, so a late summer harvest after a long period of dry might indeed dye the vibrant orange I was hoping for.

You can follow my Waysides journey here and that of Annie Cholewa, my comrade in dye-pots here.

Due to some patchy internet we are currently experiencing, it may take me a wee while to reply to your comments. Bear with me, as I do love replying to you personally.