Osage Orange
Mood:
a-ok
Topic: Natural Dyeing
This yarn was dyed with left over osage orange from my class in Helena this summer. I "had to" dye in my new studio because I needed to move the leftover dyes to put down the flooring. The yarns on the right are dyed with 100% osange orange and is wool yarn (not superwash).
The yarns on the left are osage orange mordanted with tin overdyed with dilute cochineal. The really bright orange one that is superwash wool and was in the dye slightly longer. The one on the left is silk/wool. It is amazing to me the difference between the yarns all from the same dyepot.
I had purchased some osage orange sawdust from Hillcreek Fiber Studio in Missouri, let it sit overnight in a bucket of water and then strained out the sawdust and then dyed with it. Osage orange Maclura pomifera (hedge, hedge apple, bodark)is a very common throny tree. 
Osage orange trees are a common sight on the Great Plains today although they were not a widespread member of the prairie community originally. Found primarily in a limited area centered on the Red River valley in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas, they were planted as living fences - or hedges - along the boundaries of farms, and have spread widely from these restricted, linear beginnings. The trees are easily recognized by their glossy, lance-shaped leaves (see illustration), and their short, stout thorns.
The name of the tree comes from the Osage tribe, which lived near the home range of the tree, and the aroma of the fruit after it is ripe. The Osage-orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterward became an important source of fence posts. The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, tree nails, fence posts, electrical insulators, and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. Straight-grained osage timber (most is knotty and twisted) makes very good bows. In Arkansas, in the early 19th century, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket. Additionally, a yellow-orange dye can be extracted from the wood When dried, the wood also makes excellent fire wood. Meriwether Lewis wrote to Thomas Jefferson from St. Louis on 26 March 1804, a few weeks before embarking on the expedition. "I send you herewith inclosed, some slips of the Osages Plums, and Apples. So enjoy this colorful and historic dye plant. Linda
happy
surprised
happy
lazy
Here is my dye studio in as it existed a few days ago when I was first dyeing in it.
celebratory
