N.Z. PLANT DYES

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26394, 12 April 1951, Page 2

N.Z. PLANT DYES

WOOLS SENT TO QUEEN MARY

(New Zealand F.est Association) WELLINGTON, April 12. A large collection of wools dyed with New Zealand plant dyes, the work of a Nelson woman, Miss Katharine Phillips, has been sent to Queen Mary. This was arranged through Lady Freyberg, who had examples of Miss Phillips’s work and expressed her interest in it.

Queen Mary was very much interested m the collection of homespun wools which Lady Freyberg had sent to her, said the Queen’s Lady-in-Wait-mg in a letter to Miss Phillips. The Queen was very pleased with the soft shades of the wools, so much softer as well as more enduring than those of factory-produced wools , The Queen thanked her for the booklet, ‘Plant Dyes," by Mrs Hutchinson, which, she said, gave a delightful account of the plants used in dyeing Plant dyeing jg an art not consistPractised by many in New Zealand, although on inquiry it was surprising to find how many people have done a little of it, says Miss Phillips. Many plant dyes were known to the Maoris and from that basis Mr B. C. A«ton much reasearch, the result of which he published in the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture in 1917. Miss Phillips said it seemed that natural dyes would respond to formula only up to a point and that they produce ‘what they like, wher they like, regardless of procedure." As an instance, she said she was fortunate to produce a good blue from berries of or black nightshade, gathered about Wellington’s hills, while at home at Nelson she obtained only a weak washy blue from large and luscious berries of the same kind grown, in richer soil. A dye new to her, and very successful, was obtained ter, more greenish dye came from the leaves.