Monday, August 28, 2006

O is for Oak Galls

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O is for Oak Galls...
 
these are just a few.  My oak tree is shedding them presently.
 
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I read that you can make an ink dye out of them.  Some even claim to be able to dye with them.  I have not tried that yet.  I find it interesting that a little wasp makes them.  I have never seen the little wasp, except in photographs.

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3 comments:

Dawn said...

Hmmm .... interesting .... I must check out my oak tree, Harry, soon to see if he has any oak galls.

Anonymous said...

My oak trees are shedding oak galls. I find them when I walk for the mail. They have fascinated me, especially since we don't get to see the wasp that makes them. When I first noticed oak galls, I wondered what they were. You have a nice collection of them and given wonderful information--making dye, even.

Fleece said...

Hi Cyndy

You can indeed dye with oak galls.

At our Guild dyeing day we were reading about it in a book called Wild Colour by Jenny Dean. It's a fantastic book (out of print though, bah!). She shows how to get 40 colours from one dye bath, by pre-soaking fibre in mordants and then dyeing, and again by after-soaking some of the skeins in acid or alkaline. A really interesting read.

I have also seen ground oak gall powder for sale on-line as a natural dye.

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