Happy to See… Buckthorn? By Kate Hayday, Maker’s Dozen, Quinte Chapter
W
hen I forage in our woods, my goal is impossible math: can I remove something and give something back at the same time? Foraging for invasive species is one of the best ways I have found to achieve this. There is one invasive plant in particular I forage for here, not for food, but for colour. And that plant is common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica). Many woodlot owners are familiar with this aggressive plant. It shows up early to the party and stays late, budding out in the early spring and holding on to its leaves well after everyone else has called it a season. Buckthorn does not play fair, but it can work beautifully—out of the woods, and in the maker’s workshop. I currently have three favourite foraging uses for buckthorn: as basket handles, as dye, and as ink. A-Tisket A-Tasket, Buckthorn Makes a Basket There is something very pleasing about a basket with a natural handle, and when we make harvest baskets, we often finish them with a buckthorn handle. Buckthorn wood is strong and sturdy enough to hold a full load of summer squash without breaking a sweat. I find a good-sized straight-ish branch to form the handle and use a draw shave to peel off the bark and give it a smooth finish. But hold on to that bark because we are not done with it yet.
Dyeing with Buckthorn Bark Into the dye pot the buckthorn bark goes! Dried buckthorn bark can be used to dye wool roving (unspun strands of wool fibre). With different treatments, it yields two very distinct colours: a ruddy pink and a mustard yellow. I source undyed/light coloured wool roving from local farmers and dye it for needle-felting (using notched needles to interlock wool fibers to form a more condensed material). The yellow in the little bee in this photo is made with buckthorn bark. Wool takes up the colour from buckthorn bark without needing a mordant (a substance that combines with a dye or stain and thereby fixes it in a material), meaning all you need to give the mustard colour a try at home is bark, wool, and water. I have not yet done rigorous tests, but I have generally found the dyed wools to be surprisingly colour and lightfast. Achieving the yellow versus the pink colour comes down to how you process your bark, specifically how alkaline you make your solution. Bark simply boiled will yield the mustardy yellow colour, but if fermented and kept alkaline, the same bark will yield a rich rose pink. Boiled Buckthorn for Mustard Yellow • 50 grams of dried buckthorn bark
• 100 grams of wool roving (no mordant needed)
• *amounts can be adjusted, so long as the proportions stay roughly the same (e.g. 2:1 wool to bark) • Place buckthorn bark in a non-reactive (e.g. stainless steel) saucepan. • Pour boiling water over the bark and leave it to sit overnight. • The next day simmer the bark gently for an hour. • Wet your wool fibre.
• Strain the bark out of the pot and add the damp fibre to the dye water.
Basket with Buckthorn handle 28
• Let the fibre sit in the mixture for an hour or longer without stirring. Let the fibre cool, and then rinse. Make sure you are not changing the temperature of the wool with your rinse water or it may felt.
A Bee made with wool dyed with Buckthorn
The Ontario Woodlander—An Ontario Woodlot Association Quarterly. Issue 102, March 2021
