First Attempt Marigold Dyeing Wool Yarn

 On Monday I saw a video about dyeing wool yarn with marigolds!  What a concept!  We had a ton of marigold blossoms on the deck in the plant tower...

Well, we DID have a ton of blossoms.  On Monday I was only able to harvest about 1/4 cup of blossoms.  I pinched off all the spent blooms and am hopeful that the plants will come through with another batch of blossoms soon.

So--dyeing with marigolds.  There are many videos.  This is what I did. I put the marigold blossoms in a one-quart Revere Ware saucepan that we received for a wedding gift fifty-one years ago. It is still almost pristine even with very frequent usage!  I brought the water to a strong simmer on the stove over low heat--though our low heat was way more than a simmer so I shut off the burner in short order and let the pot sit for an hour or so.

In the meantime I put my new-to-me stainless steel pot-now to be a dye pot only- from the thrift store on the stove and put in a  lot of water and 1 teaspoon of powdered alum that I found at the grocery store for about $3.00.  I added half a teaspoon of cream of tartar and stirred well.  Next I added a skein of previously spun yarn from Thetford Roving and submerged the yarn in the alum water.  I brought the pot up to simmer and watched it like a hawk for a few minutes then when I worried that it was too hot, I shut off the pot and let the wool soak in the hot mordant water for an hour or so.

When the mordanting stage was done (an hour), I took the yarn out of the pot, squeezed out the water then rinsed in fresh water.  At this point I strained the possibly-spent marigold blossoms out of the small pot then moved that water into the bigger pot and added the yarn.  There was not much water so I added enough to cover the yarn and brought the temperature up to a simmer again.  Yet again I could not really regulate that temperature so I turned off the heat, put the cover on and turned the oven on to 180 degrees F.  After placing the covered pot of marigold "tea", water, and yarn in the oven I set the timer for an hour then went about my business.  After an hour I shut of the stove and ascended to the "upper regions" where I picked up my test knitting and spent another hour knitting before crawling off to bed.

In the morning I pulled the pot out of the oven with guarded high hopes.  After all, there were only 1/4 cup blossoms and about 25 grams of yarn, if I recall correctly.

This is what I found:

This made me so happy!  The "control" yarn is on the bottom and the dyed yarn on top.  Yes, it did dye the yarn yellow.  No, it is not very yellow, but what could I expect with only 1/4 cup of blossoms.

In the last two days since I pulled the yarn out of the oven, I have watched many more marigold and other natural dyeing videos.  I am really souped up to try more soon.  I will be keeping my eyes out for marigold beds in case people want to share.

ALSO!!!  Lichen!  Lichen soaked in ammonia and water for several months makes a beautiful purple dye!  Amazingly, a few weeks ago we had a windstorm and a small broken branch showed up under out live oak tree on the front lawn. It is covered with lichen, though I don't know what variety.   I did not immediately pick it up....sometimes sloth turns out to be a good thing!  So I will bring that in and harvest the lichen.  I will also go for a walk around the neighborhood and see if anyone has any broken branches after Hurricane Debby finally lets go of us.  Still raining today and wind blowing.

So...I ordered several used books on dyeing with natural plants AND I also ordered an inexpensive hot plate to see if I can actually follow the rules more closely.  I am looking forward to much more colorful yarn spinning in the future, even though I don't mind at all spinning white yarn.  Plying white and a color makes me happy, too.