I chose to dye some handspun yarn with marigolds this summer. It turned out beautifully and I wanted to share some of my methods with you. Marigolds are beautiful plants that are very easy to grow. Most pests will leave them alone due to their scent, although I did discover last year that apparently slugs will devour them.

I followed the instructions in “A Dyers Garden” by Rita Buchanan. Her instructions are very clear and the book has some beautiful pictures to show what shades you can get using different mordants.

Per the instructions in the book, you will get yellow either with just the blossoms or only the leafy stems. I chose to use blossoms because I’m not ready to uproot my flowers this early in the year. They are also usable fresh, dried, or frozen. I chose to use them fresh, but I’m going to keep some flowers aside to use in teaching next spring.

I mordanted my fiber with alum because it was the brightest yellow I could get with the mordants I had readily available. Rita’s instructions for mordanting indicated about a 14g alum per 100g weight of fiber. I had 301g of yarn, so that put me at 42g of fiber. I simmered the wool at ~180F for an hour and allowed it to cool overnight.

To extract the pigment out of the marigolds, all you have to do is simmer them for about 30 minutes then strain out the flowers. I did a 2nd extraction and got considerably less pigment that time through. Still enough to be worth the effort, but a 3rd extraction is probably not worth it.

Next, you add the fiber to the dye pot. You may need to add additional water to cover the fiber. I simmered the yarn for about 1 hour, let it cool overnight, and rinsed and dried it.