Yarrow from Sienna, grown on the East 40

This week Sierra Heath walked into the breezeway where I was working with a bunch of yarrow she had just harvested from her garden plot not that many feet away. It was irresistible, I have never died with yarrow before, so got started right away. Yarrow, like most natural dyestuffs, should be equal in weight to the fiber being dyed. Since it wasn’t a large quantity, I decided I wanted to do swatches of 7 different fabrics plus embroidery floss as a kind of test, along with some nice bias silk ribbon that is pretty light to get the most “bang for my buck” on the 50 grams of yarrow I was given. Yes, I weigh in grams, the math is so much easier than working with ounces.

I prepared the pot by putting the yarrow in the pot with water and heated at 180-200 degrees F for about an hour before straining out the plant matter. I put the fibers in and after only a half hour, the wool was a gorgeous, buttery yellow but the rest of the fibers were only weakly colored. I took out the wool so it wouldn’t hog all the dye, it was already perfect and didn’t need anything more. I left everything else in the pot for the full hour that is usual for yarrow. By that time the silk/hemp charmeuse blend was a gorgeous color, but the rest was frankly a bit anemic. One thing I’ve learned from natural dyes, just keep going if you’re not happy with something as-is, there’s always something more that can be done. 

Fiber matters! Left, wool soaked up the yarrow like a sponge, the silk/hemp next to it also worked out well, but the others were quite light before further treatment.

I thought of copper because the yellow of the too-light fiber was cool, tending towards green anyway. I keep a jar of copper things-cut off bits from pipes, wire and scrap metal from past jewelry projects, soaking in a vinegar/water solution on my kitchen counter. (Doesn’t everyone have one sitting on their kitchen counter?) I brought the jar to the East 40 the next day and dipped the too-light fibers in the copper. Almost immediately, without even warming them up, the copper deepened the colors! You can see for yourself below-the bias cut silk on both the left and right were from the same roll of ribbon and dyed in the same yarrow pot. The only difference is that the pile on the right was dipped in my homemade copper bath! After taking the before-and-after copper bath photo, I took the plunge, or should I say the fiber took the plunge into the copper bath. Not only did I like the color of the copper-dipped fiber better, copper actually increases color-fastness.

The same silk, both died identically in yarrow; at right, after a dip in a copper bath

​Next up was to over-dye with indigo (blue), inspired by the cool/greenish hue of the yarrow on the silk and cotton. My hunch was correct-I got some lovely greens. 

I tried to make a lake pigment from the leftover dye, but failed. I’m not sure if it was PH issues or if yarrow doesn’t work for making lake pigments-probably my error. My water at home is PH neutral, so I keep forgetting to amend the acidic water at the East 40 before starting a process like making a lake pigment where that is critical.

My work table-upper right, silk velvet died with madder & cochineal that I want to over-dye to make darker; madder root just harvested, lower left, fabrics on the right including some that have been dipped in indigo and Sienna's yarrow center stage