Marigold Wool Dyeing Again!

 Last week a kind friend shared some of her marigolds to add to the few more marigolds that bloomed on our deck.  She also gave me some beautiful zinnia blossoms.  When I got home and started the dyeing process ( first thing:scour the wool, then pre-mordant the fiber, then rinse the mordanted fiber and in the meantime prepare the dye bath by heating up the blossoms in the dyepot for at least an hour and finally add the fiber to the dyepot and bring the heat up to simmering again for a minimum of an hour) I decided to add a few onion papers to the dye pot since I was pretty sure they would add to the deepness of the yellow color.

After heating/simmering the blossoms and yarn for a couple of hours, I turned off the heat and let the pot sit until morning.  Well, morning was Sunday so I did not get back to the pot until Monday when I drained and washed the  nice yellow fiber.  It was nice to see that the dye had completely been exhausted, meaning that the water was cleared and had no more yellow color in it.

This is what the fiber turned out to look like:

The color is nice and rich.  The yarn is actually multi-colored since I left the blossoms and onion papers in the pot in with the simmering fiber. The fiber itself was more evenly dyed.  It looks pretty nice. I am happy.  Next I will be dyeing with avocado pits and skins!  Looking forward to that.

A final note:  tonight I sat down to spin the fiber for a few minutes.  It turns out that I was not gentle enough with the fiber when  dyeing it...and I found the fiber a little bit felted.  It can still be spun but I have to pre-draft the heck out of that fiber.  The funny thing is that as I was knitting on the test knit today my mind focussed on spinning and dyeing a little bit.  At that time I decided that I will probably just spin the natural colored fiber.  I really do like that the best.  Though when the lichen dye that is fermenting on the deck is ready for dyeing, that might also make me go back to the dye pot.  The avocado is supposed to bring pink and the lichen is supposed to dye purple.  I like both those colors.  I think I will either learn to be more gentle or use fiber that is sturdier...!

Postscript!  Just after publishing the above it crossed my mind that I can card the yellow fiber and solve the felted problem!  So happy!