Adventures in Natural Dyeing . . . Marigolds

This summer, I grew a bumper crop of marigolds to experiment with natural dyeing. Although I only dedicated two raised beds to the flowers, once we started harvesting them, they bloomed so prolifically that we couldn’t keep up! I made strings and strings of the blossoms to hang dry, and ended up with a significant stock of dried marigolds.

My first dyeing experiment was on wool - remnants of Pendleton white wool shirting, which took the dye beautifully. Here are the steps for scouring, mordanting, and dyeing:

SCOUR

Measure out 1% WOF of Euculan.  Boil 1 cup of water, pour into measuring cup w/ Euculan to dissolve detergent.

Put large canning pot full of room temp water onto stove.  Pour measuring cup of detergent into water and stir. 

Add fiber to pot.

Slowly bring pot to just below boiling, stirring fibers gently.  Be careful not to agitate or they may felt.  Hold there for one hour.

Let cool – when cool enough to touch, rinse fabric in lukewarm water.

 MORDANT

Measure 20% WOF aluminum potassium sulfate 

Bring 1 cup water to boil, pour it into container, mix to dissolve

Fill dye pot with room temperature water

Add dissolved mixture and mix well

Add pre-wetted fabric to pot, slowly raise heat to simmer/just below boiling, hold for 1 hour

Allow to cool a little bit, remove fabric (or leave in solution overnight to cool)

Rinse in similar temperature water

DYEING

Weigh 25% WOF of dried marigolds

Put in pot filled with water (enough water to cover whatever you’ll be dyeing)

Low simmer for 1 hour

Strain out the marigolds (pour water from one pot to another over a strainer)

Put fabric in, keeping solution at low simmer.

I achieved the lightest, bright yellow color with only a few minutes in the dyepot. The deeper mustard color resulted from longer exposure; although I got two dark colors, they don’t differ much, and the color didn’t really get much darker even after sitting overnight. Notably, the color didn’t fade much at all once the fabric was dry - it remained bright and saturated.