Silk Sarong Hand-Dyed

Wear a hand-dyed silk sarong as a skirt, a beach cover-up, or a magnificent and elegant shawl.  The 45×108 inch size is perfect as a belly dance veil.

A customer in Florida has several of my silk sarongs in different colors and uses them to lay over her massage clients after a massage.

Another woman uses one as a head wrap.  A Jewish woman sewed two together to make her Tallit, or prayer shawl.  They make stunning altar cloths.

Machine wash and dry in cold water on gentle cycles.

I use plants to dye these silk sarongs, here at Herbs from the Labyrinth, and in addition to fabulous colors, the plants add subtle energetic properties of their own.

Mugwort gives a color that is like golden champagne and is well-known as an herb that supports vivid dreams and is useful for visionary purposes. The Mugwort I use grows at the edges of my labyrinth garden.

Alkanet shares a champagne color on the silk and is protective of our physical health.  The herbalist Culpepper called Alkanet “a darling of Venus” Love, beauty and health.

Logwood, also known as Palo Campeche which means “wood from the place sacred to the snake goddess”, gives colors ranging from lavender to deep purple, and grows in places that are sacred to the Goddess. The Logwood I use is sustainably harvested and certified Fair Trade from the Dominican Republic.

Lac gives a deep pink/magenta color, from a resinous excrement of a small beetle in India, collected under trees during the fertile “Season of Red Rain”. Considered to be aphrodisiac.

Osage orange wood chips give a deep golden hue. The wood chips I use are given to me by a traditional bow-maker.

Cochineal gives a color range similar to Lac and is from a beetle that lives on the prickly pear cactus.  This is the traditional source of red dyes in Mexico and the rest of MesoAmerica.

Madder root gives colors in the orange range and has been used as a dye plant for more than 5000 years.