Instant dyeing the natural way

Top Row Persicaria Tinctoria top left
Bottom Row Golden rod flowers first left, flowers with ammonia, stems and leaves, stems and leaves with ammonia
Top Row Centre Golden Rod flowers over dyed with Persicaria Tinctoria and on right golden rod leaves and stems overdyed with Persicaria Tinctoria


Posted by Helen
Written on the 31st of July

I am busy getting ready to teach for a week at the Association of Weavers Spinners and Dyers Summer School-which event I have been getting ready for for weeks if not months. But yesterday I loaded the car and today pottered around doing bits and pieces and Enys came round to garden. The garden is reproaching me, full of dye that is not being used. I have dried armfuls of weld,Gensita Tinctoria and yarrow. But the Persicaria is going blue at the edges showing it is ready for dyeing and the golden rod in flower. SO................
100g of damp ( because we had had a lot of rain) golden rod flowers into one slow cooker, 100g of golden rod leaves and stalk into another. Topped up with 4 litres of water. About 100g of damp mordanted (8%Alum 7%Cream of tartar) Wensleydale added.
Both on "Keep warm" facility -this is about 80 degrees.
one hour later the flowers had dyed the Wensleydale a bright clear yellow while the stalks and leaves showed no colour at all
The tops of three Persicaria T plants were chopped off leaves stripped and ripped up into a pan covered with cold water put onto the gas stove in the kitchen as my electric rings are packed. Heated till hand hot. Left to sit for about half an hour while Enys weeded the over grown veg garden because I think she despaired of me ever doing it . I squeezed out the leaves, added 1 tablespoon of washing soda so the water went from a sherry colour with a blue tinge to a dark green. I started to beat the water with a whisk and the water went turquoise. I added 1 teaspoon of thiourea dioxide-this is quite a lot but I always reckon that the water is full of oxygen after all the whisking to precipitate the indogotin and needs it. I had to heat the vat up again as it had gone cold but after another 20 minutes it had gone a clear greeny yellow and dyed 50g of merino 18.5micron a nice blue.

Within one hour of picking I had bright yellow, blue and green fibres. Not bad for a "slow" process. Not only was the colour pretty quick but it only took me a few minutes to prepare the dye baths.In both cases while Enys and I were having a cup of coffee,one at the start of her visit and one at the end!

Young Golden Rod- a surprise

Posted by Helen


Goldenrod in March 2009

Golden rod in flower August 2008

When we were first planting the dye garden I told Enys I wanted Golden Rod. Much against her inclination as a gardener as golden rod spreads fast and can be difficult to control Enys planted golden rod saying "you want golden rod you will have goldenrod- a whole garden of it". Goldenrod as a dye is a fabulous bright light fast yellow and at the very first dye workshop I ever ran someone gave us huge amount of goldenrod which we over dyed in Indigo when it gave a glorious emerald green. So obviously I wanted goldenrod and if I don't have a garden of it the original two plants have spread very considerably and so last week I actually cleared goldenrod which was threatening to choke a dwarf willow and which was looking a bit beleaguered. Enys on a waste not want not principle said to me sternly "are you going to try dyeing with that?" So of course I did as I was told and tried the immature plants for dye. Normally Goldenrod is one of those plants that you dye with when in full flower. The flower heads on their own give the clearest yellow I think but the whole plant gives a golden yellow with perhaps the slightest of green over tones.

Yellow from mature Golden Rod September 2007

I had cleared perhaps a dozen plants about a foot high so I chopped them up very roughly covered with water and heated very slowly and gently for about 12hours. The water was a deep brown to my surprise so I drained off the dye bath and repeated the extraction.
Into the resulting dye bath I put my ubiquitous Teeswater fleece and a 100 g of 18.5micon merino tops which has been in a very weak indigo vat and was dyed a very pale blue with lots of white areas. Both had been mordanted in 8 % alum 7% Cream of tartar.
The Teeswater took the colour first turning a soft pinky purple while the merino looked a rather unpromising grey. After 6 hours or so the merino began to look a greyish purple. Gingerly I added a drop of ammonia to see whether it would brighten the colours and the whole bath went a deep green. This change is rather reminiscent of the colour from elderberries which change from purple to green (and back again) with a pH change.
The resulting colour has proved very difficult to photograph looking blue or grey or even purple against different background.

To my eye it looks a dark turquoise, my husband ( red green deficient in his vision) says to him it looks green. Looking at the merino across the garden it look a dark grey with a green tinge. The odd thing is in all the photos I have taken I cannot get one that looks green. Whatever the colour is it is somewhat a surprise to get it from a plant

Teeswater looking purple against my red gold broom All the photos are of the same merino and Teeswater curls

which later will give bright yellow. I had expected pale or non existent yellow

The chemicals in the plant must change significantly as the plant matures.But why?