As a florist and flower lover, I like to see flowers put to good use. So when I heard that Cara Marie Piazza, a textile designer in New York City, uses floral trash as one of the many ingredients for her natural dyes, I had to learn more.
Photography by Sophia Moreno-Bunge for Gardenista, except where noted.
Cara Marie Piazza’s natural dye studio. Each textile she sells online at Cara Marie NYC is one of a kind–some with colors that serve as reminders of the flowers’ past vibrancy, and others in softer, more subtle hues.
Flowers Cara will use for a “bundle” dye. She began as a screen and digital printer, but found she didn’t enjoy the process of working on a computer to create textiles.
Cara making a bundle dye with flower trash rolled onto a white backdrop.
Bundles (rolled with flowers) get steamed over a large vat of water to release the plant dyes onto the fabric.
This textile was dyed for four hours with an assortment of red and green eucalyptus leaves, dahlia, and rose.
Extra flowers that Cara will dry first, and then use as dye. In addition to culling from the waste piles of New York’s florists, one of Cara’s recent projects involves partnering with NYC restaurants to intercept their food waste.
A silk scarf was dyed with twice-extracted madder and dried hibiscus.
Photograph by Alberto Moreau.
A silk scarf in an itajime shibori pattern, dyed with logwood, iron sulphate, madder, and turmeric.
Photograph by Alberto Moreau.
Photography by Alberto Moreau.
A silk scarf dyed with madder, iron sulphate and turmeric in an itajime shibori print.