Goldenrod Dye
Solidago, commonly called Goldenrod, grows wild in fields all over Marianna from August to November. There are 150 species of wildflowers and most of them are native to North America. Fall allergies are blamed on Goldenrod but the real culprit is Ragweed. If you've seen Goldenrod you know that it attracts many pollinators. Ragweed, however, is wind-pollinated.
This fall I finally tried using goldenrod flowers for yellow dye. I love the pale color I achieved. There are many online sites that teach you how to dye and create beautiful yellow colors with goldenrod, but this site isn't one of them. I only want to show you my results.
In my batch I used alum as the mordant; a mordant is a substance that combines with a stain so that the stain will fix into the material. The material I used was an all-natural cotton towel similar to thin muslin. The alum was purchased at the grocery store in the spices and seasonings section.
The result was a beautiful pastel yellow. Different mordants apparently will change the color. If I had used more goldenrod I don't know if that would have made the fabric darker. However, it was the end of the season and the goldenrod was few and far between and I was left with only a good handful (I read one could freeze the flowers for later use). At any rate, I'm hoping to dye again next year with the same kind of cloth but more goldenrod, yet I don't know if adding more flowers or alum will make it more yellow. Truthfully, the color green is what I'm after in natural plants. I need it for a project. I found a site with information in regard to what plants are good for natural dyes and what colors are achieved. The link is here woolery.com.
About a year or so ago the Marianna Community Public Library had a guest fiber artist, Cody Edgar, who visited the library to show how to dye with wild plants; his family history goes back many decades in Marianna, and I know Cody personally and consider him an expert in plant dyes and weaving. I hope he returns for another lesson since I missed the last event.
