Hemerocalis

The common daylily, genus Hemerocalis:

Actually, these are not quite so common, as they have a double flower.

These flowers have been in my yard a long time. When I was in high school, my best friend Susan and I were wildflower-crazy. There was huge field near a pond near my house and every summer, it was filled with daylilies. One spring, we took trowels and a bucket and dug up a batch of the newly-sprouting tuberous roots. We divided our take and planted them in our respective yards.

One thing about daylilies, you can’t get rid of them if they like you. That original handful of roots grew, spread, were divided, and spread again. Among them were occasional double-flowered ones and I managed over time to segregate them into one bed. A few years ago, we decided to put a ring of daylilies and a ring of green hostas around the oak tree in the front yard and used the double daylilies to show them off.

Every time the daylilies bloom, I get the urge to do some dyeing and try to capture their rich orange color mottled with yellows, dark red, and green. Previously, using only Kool-aide or food coloring, I never quite got the depth of color I was after. This year, armed with the Greener Shade Dyes and some roving from the Sheep Shed, I came pretty close to reaching my goal:

Spun up, the mottling of colors began to drop out:

And by the time it was double-plied, it did not have quite the speckling I was hoping for. However, I was pleased with the depth of the color and will make another venture in trying this one again.

In full sun, it is a lighter orange, but still a pretty shade:

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