Natural Dyeing with Weld from the garden
by Elaine on Aug.24, 2009, under Blog Posts
I planted a natural dye garden this spring: Weld, Woad, Dyer’s Coreopsis, and Marigolds. I already have three tubs of Madder as well. I cut the leaves of the weld–they were in the form of rosettes and had not flowered yet. I have included photos of the weld in the dyepot and the resulting skeins of yarn. I was able to dye 4 – 2 ounce skeins and get very good concentration of colour. The skein on the right was from the first dye bath and is more green-yellow. The subsequent dyebaths gave very clear intense yellows. I just cut the leaves,immersed them in water, simmered for an hour, left in over night and strained them out in the morning when I proceeded to dye. I was very happy with the results.