Plant dyed wool fabric. From the top: chokecherry,chokecherry,goldenrod,black berry,black berry, hawberry,hawberry with copper mordant (the dark one), chokecherry, chokecherry, apple bark,apple leaves,apple barkApril harvested goldenrod when she was here on Manitoulin in August and followed a recipe in Jackie Crook's book, Natural Dyeing.
The recipe involves heat. Simmer the fresh goldenrod flowers in water for one hour. Before straining, leave the dye mixture to steep for one hour.
Then - bring the fabrics back to a simmer in the dye bath, and leave to cool and steep for a week.
Rinse in warm water.
Use pre-mordanted fabric. (we used alum, sumac, copper water)
The results were GOLDEN! The most perfect yellows and golds rewarded me after all the chokecherry browns. silk rayon velvet and wool took the colour the best, but these pictures do not capture the richness of colour. (The goldenrod is near the top.) 
We also froze some of flowers, then released the colour into warm water. That method also worked well. The bowl on the left has frozen flowers that released their colour and remained with the fabric for a week. The bowl on the right is some of the simmered dye bath.
8 comments:
MMMM oh WOW i'm harvesting solidago too today :)
Your results are amazing. How do you use sumac as a mordant--fruit/leaves/bark/root?????
I vow to start some dying next summer. Inspiring!
These colors are so very beautiful. I really love the velvets too. How inspiring all of this is. I am edging toward trying this next spring and summer, as I am assuming it is difficult to do in the rainy and cold seasons.
Ooh I agree the velvets are superb. What great results. They look so good all folded neatly. Gilly
wowza! ya mom! i was wondering how the goldenrod did. I am so happy because it is so easy to harvest and so abundant....not like some of the other guys we've gotten to know (chokecherries, I'm looking at you). That's so great mom! Thanks for sending the cotton and silk. and the black too.. xoxo april
Bountilful harvest...what a wonderful colour range. I especially love those velvets.
Jacky xox
The pictures are like an art gallery. The colours are so beautiful!
I am drooling over these colours and fabrics. I will be dyeing velvet soon and using chemical dyes which give very vibrant colours and I have to work hard to get a few subtler shades.
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