Wild plants and berries provide a rich variety of bright colors for cloth. Most dyes require the use of a "mordant" to fix the color permanently. Mordents make the dye bite harder, binding the dye into the fibers. Fabrics all react differently to dyes - ones that work on wool may not work on cottons. Mordants may change the shade of the color produced however. The most common mordents are alum, cream of tartar, ferrous sulfate (iron) and tin potash. Aluminum tends to brighten a dye and iron darkens it, but both fix the color. Iron has been known to darken yellow dyes to almost green, so this is where an aluminum is a better choice. A mordant is always added before dyeing the fabric. More specifically these are metal salts and they cause a chemical reaction to the fabric. Some crude native alum’s can be found in wood ash and sediment of bog pools.

The main way to dye using barks is by having the dyestuff immersed in cold water then brought to a boil, so the color can be released (this can be a few hours for certain tree barks). Leave the liquid to cool, then the fabric is put in and brought back to a boil, then simmered. Squeeze the fiber out and the dry.

1 - Black - bogpool sediments, yellow flag, elder bark.

2- Brown - lichen, seaweed, peat soot, water lily, onion skins.

3 - Blue - blackberries (use alum and salt), sloes, bilberries.

4 - Red - madder.

5 -Yellow - heather, bracken, dock, autumn crocus.

6 - Yellow/Green - elder leaves (plus alum).

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