I have a really nice pineapple sage plant in my herb garden right now. It is really enjoying the mellow fall we have been having. It is blooming like crazy this week. Everytime I eye the brillant red flowers I wonder what kind of dye they would produce. I decided to find out for myself a couple days ago. I envisioned a soft pink or maybe a pale red. I was wrong.
I started with 2 oz of flower tops and simmered them for one hour. After the dye bath was cool I strained out the spent flowers. To the nice red dye bath I added 2 oz of wool yarn that I had previously mordanted with alum. I simmered the yarn in the dye for one hour. I then let it sit in the dye bath for about 24 hours. The results….. let’s just say I am happy I only dyed 2 0z of yarn instead of say, eight. It is not bad. It is just not at all what I had imagined. Instead of being pink it is a fawn color. I am really surprised by the results. Afterall the dye bath was so red. Oh well.
I am working on dyeing some yarn with marigolds and if I have any of the dye bath left when I am done I might just try overdyeing the pineapple sage yarn with the marigold dye and see what I get.
On another note, I have been very pleased with how my pineapple sage is doing this year. It is a fun plant to grow even if there are not too many uses for it. If you have never tried smelling the crushed leaves then you are really missing something! It really does smell like pineapple. The leaves can be added to tea mixtures but I have not personally tried it. The simmering flowers for the dye bath sure made my house smell good so, I imagine the leaves simmering on the stove would do the same. They might make a nice simmering potpourri. Something to try out at least.
