This summer I bought some Coreopsis Amulet seeds from Kings Seeds and grew a couple of dozen plants to dye with. I decided to try solar dyeing with some of the flowers as I haven’t used that method before. I mordanted some corriedale wool with alum and placed in a jar with water and some fresh flowers. It was surprising to see the colour start to come out of the flowers within a few hours, though I wasn’t sure that would mean the colour would go into the wool.
I left the wool brewing for just over a week, during that time I added a few more flowers and moved the wool around as there were bits that looked like they hadn’t taken much dye. I removed the yarn from the jar, shook off as much plant matter as I could, let it dry overnight and then gave it a warm hand wash. As you can see in the photo below the colour is mainly a bright rusty orange, though the colour is a bit patchy. Overall I’m happy with the results, solar dyeing seems a great low fuss dyeing process but I will have to wait until next summer to try it again.
Kate Alberta Weaving 