Watching the every increasing number of poke plants growing in the area, I’m reminded of a few years ago when my grandson and I decided to put the plants to use.
Despite popular opinion about not touching the plants, I had found an article online about use the berry juice, so we set to work, picked the berries, strained them and had a beautiful dye.
We used it on vellum and the results were amazing. We had a color that seemed unable to be reproduced in acrylic.
Throughout history, the poke berries have been used as a dye. I found one online article in which a woman used it to dye her yarn and has experimented with other fabrics.
She has also included a recipe for a pokeberry dye pot.
Here’s the article.
An excellent project for creating a pokeberry ink that should last for awhile.
Read the comments under the main article for more suggestions.
And other recipes for dye and ink.
Always be cautious when working with plants with some toxicity. Use latex gloves.
Wild Arkansas 