Witch’s Hair Lichen (Alectoria sarmentosa) is a common perennial lichen which can be found growing draped or strung over conifer tree limbs and deciduous shrub branches in wet old growth forests with clean air. They’re commonly found in areas between valley and mountainous forests, avoiding the immediate coast. In our case, it was found in St’at’imc territory, driving through beautiful old growth forests. We couldn’t help but notice just how much of this lichen there was; so of course, we wondered if it could be dyed with. 

When it comes to natural dyes, the most common ones have their own specific recipes that have been fine-tuned over many generations to get the strongest colour from it. Unfortunately, there are possibly hundreds of plants that also have the ability to dye cloth that aren’t talked about or experimented with, because the knowledge was lost many many years ago. This means the most ideal way to dye with these plants is unknown, but we have to start somewhere. 

The Process 

With the witch’s hair lichen, I figured I would start by giving everything about an hour. As usual, I began by scouring and mordanting the material for one hour each. Once the fabric was prepared for the dye, I brought some water to a simmer, added the lichen, and let it simmer for another hour. 

Then, I strained the bath, threw the lichen in the compost, and added the fabric to the dye bath. I let this material sit in the bath, simmering, for another hour. Amazingly, the fabric turned a beautiful soft yellow-green. 

Of course, at this point, I had to add an iron mordant (ferrous sulphate) to the bath to see what other colour I could achieve. I mean, I got this far right? Of course it worked beautifully and turned the fabric a medium brown. 

This experience was incredible. This lichen dyed this cloth just as easily as many of the commonly-used plants I’ve dyed with in the past, but I would’ve never known about it unless I tried. To whoever has read this far, if you’re interested in natural dyes, this is your sign to try dyeing with whatever random plants that are native to your area and easy to find and forage responsibly.