Our late September fall harvest at Stone Edge Farm in Sonoma, California, was a vibrant palette of food and color!  We gathered dyes and edibles from all the cultivated, organic, heirloom and wild plants, getting to savor the joy of slow food AND slow textiles. We were honored to collaborate again with Stone Edge Farm’s culinary director, John McReynolds. John and I had partnered on a “Foraging For Fashion: The Slow Food Connection” event during the Eco Chic Exhibit at the Sonoma Museum of Art last Spring. This would be my second time working with the seasons and plants at Stone Edge, in the middle of March I collected deep blues and purples from dropping olives, steel grays from oak galls, yellows from poppy roots, and luminescent greens from calendula flowers blooming at peak between the vineyard rows.  We were excited to create a workshop that would be on the land of Stone Edge, where we could share the experience of gathering on-site within the whole farm system of organic vineyard and abundance of flowers, shrubs,  herbs, vegetables, and an abundance of  fruit trees and to see the colors and harvest of Fall.

Through our color workshop we explored, and seriously experimented with Stone Edge Farm’s emblematic crop; cabernet grapes, fallen to the ground, and fresh prunings of grape leaves. Like wine and wine regions, plant dyes can also be conjured according to particular climate, soil quality and water;  expressing nothing less than the terroir  of the land, and a celebration of harvest and artistry. Color can be cultivated ecologically and culturally for fashion and textiles in just the same way.

Looking at the whole system of the farm, and of the plants, we experimented with grape leaves and fruit. Grape leaves created gorgeous shades of yellows to earthy chartreuse, and deep greens.

The grape skins took some time to simmer and to arrive at their brightest shade, but when they did the color that unfolded was a bright and beautiful fuchsia.

We created colors from an array of Stone Edge flowers, weeds, herbs, and fruit and vegetable bi-products, collected with the help of Colby Eireman, who’s plant knowledge and landscaping expertise, helps to care for and carefully craft the Farm ecology at Stone Edge. Colby’s book, “Fruit Trees in Small Spaces: Abundant Harvests from Your Own Backyard”, is due out by Timber Press in early Spring 2012. (Funny, enough, the same publishing family as “The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes!”)

Ariel, our long time  friend, eco model, AND a Sonoma native, lent her creativity in experimenting with color from the landscape she knows so well.

Stone Edge Farm and the Sonoma farm land is rich with oak galls. Oak galls, rich in tannins, grow on oak trees through a symbiotic relationship with the wasp. You can often easily remove them from the oak trees, or find them already on the  ground.

Luiven, couture textile designer and natural dyer, pulled this gorgeous stone gray scarf out of a Stone Edge oak gall dye bath…

John created a feast of a Fall harvest with all vegetables, herbs, fruit, and even acorn bread , foraged or harvested from the land on site.

Our delicious meal, made with the seasonal color producing plants, not to mention paired with dye colors of the day, the grape plant, and Stone Edge Farm’s special reserve wines, which we savored in each other’s company, connecting both to color and a seasoned sense of place. We thank all who were there, for their generosity and for lending all their creative culinary, plant, and color expertise!

 -Sasha