Dyeing with marigolds and madder

After the workshop there was some leftover dye stuff that Dagmar let us take. I grabbed a bag of marigold heads and a jug of the madder extract dyebath with a little cochineal mixed in. I took advantage of the recent surge beautiful weather to dye some yarn. My original plan was to use only the marigolds and leave the madder for overdyeing some cotton that I don't like a little later. The dye that comes from the first extraction of the marigold heads is a rich, golden color. I love the color, but decided I wanted to go more orange with this batch so I ended up adding about half of the madder stock to the pot.

On the left is the marigold dye stock and on the right is the marigold with the added madder/cochineal stock.

I mordanted the original skeins in a 15% wog alum bath and let them sit overnight. After I finished, there was still a bit of dye left in the pot so I filled up the rest of the gallon jug that was storing the madder/cochineal dye with some of the leftover stock. I then mordanted another skein in a 15% alum bath and dyed with what was left in the jug giving me a redder orange.

On the left, the marigold with a bit of the madder/cochineal and on the right,  the madder/cochineal with a bit of marigold. 

This weekend, Chris and I are going to try and get some good greens out of red onions skins. Hopefully things will go as planned, I will post about that next week.