Spare the rod! - first steps in natural dyeing with Golden Rod

Golden Rod dyed wool with the very plants it came from

Its wool week in the UK and I have finally put some time aside to have a go at natural dying. It seems a long time ago now that I first came across Michel Garcia founder of  Couleur Garance*, a botanical garden of dye plants, set in the Chateau de Lauris in Provence. I heard about this magical place via a podcast from the fascinating website of the MAIWA foundation** a Canadian organisation set up in 1997 by MAIWA handprints to help eradicate poverty in rural villages in poorer countries. Sadly I have not been there yet but it inspired me to see what I could do in my own back garden. Its taken me a while but I am pleased as Punch that I tried it out.

Looking round the garden for suitable plants earlier this year I was a bit miffed to find out that the massive yellow plants I had been trying to eradicate for several years was Golden Rod. A perfect plant for dying yellow it's really hard to control once it's on your patch. This years outcrop had to be spared and ideally I had to get it used while the flowers were at their best. I just made it.

I had been looking out for a suitable dye pot for quite a while. Dye pots must be either stainless steel, glass or enamel if you do not want it to affect the finished colour and I wanted it pretty big . I couldn't find anything in my usual haunts for second hand bargains. But a couple of weeks ago a chap round the corner was having a garage sale. He had some lovely antique woodworking tools which were hard to resist and while we were talking I asked if he happened to have any large stainless steel pots he wanted rid of. Next thing he has hopped off to his kitchen and I'm left in charge of the garage sale. He came back with a rather posh steamer complete with inner bowl, strainer and lid. Rather smaller, more complicated and more expensive than my original idea but he turned out to be a right salesman and I left £15 lighter clutching the said pot.

As it turns out the pot with all its extras is ideal. I managed to dye about 4 ozs of wool at a time and it would probably do more.  I decided against throwing the wool in with the flowers and boiled up about 4 or 5 heads for 45 minutes or so before straining. I had forgotten about mordanting the wool so the dye was left outside in tub for a week before I found the mordant kit purchased from George Weil  many months ago. The alum mordant didn't seem too scary, so another 45 minutes of wool simmering ensued before my white Shetland wool finally went into the dye pot for a further 25 minutes.

Getting the wool so hot for so long seemed counter intuitive but luckily I remembered reading that felting is caused by agitation and sudden changes in temperature. So you rinse in hot water first and gradually reduce the temperature of the wool.

I was really chuffed with the results, I was expecting it to be a bit murky but it came out a rich yellow. A second batch in the part exhausted dye pot gave me a lovely primrose.

Next up the onion skins, I have been collecting for a year.

Wooly
*You can get a flavour of the dye garden at  http://www.frenchgardening.com/visitez.html?pid=12016936941558680
**http://www.maiwa.com/foundation/index.html