Dandelions

I've been away in Arizona for a couple of weeks, visiting friends, so it was a delight to see that spring had arrived in the Uk whilst I was away. The dandelions are out in force along Milton Keynes' grid roads, where the high speed traffic spreads the dandelion clocks along the grass verges.

Yesterday afternoon I gathered a basket full of dandelion flowers that were basking in the warm sunshine, to dye with. This is what 900 plus dandelion heads look like! My fingers were stained bright yellow by the time I had finished.

Following Jenny Dean's instructions, I boiled the heads of an hour. The brew looked most unappetising!

Once I'd strained off the heads, I dyed four skeins of wool using my standard method. Three had been pre-mordanted with alum and cream of tartar, and one with copper and vinegar. The recipes, with precise quantities, can be found in January's blog archive. All four skeins were immersed in a large dye bath and simmered for half an hour. Initially, I was a bit skeptical about the colour that seemed to be emerging. It seemed rather weak and wishy-washy.

After half an hour, I spooned off five scoops of the dye liquor with my trusty green soup ladle, into two smaller pans, and added an iron assistant to one and a tin assistant to the other, to sadden and gladden two of the alum mordanted skeins. The pinch of tin is in the orange pot and the pinch of iron in the yellow one, both dissolved in a small amount of boiling water. On the hob, the tin pan is at the front and the iron on at the back. Again, precise quantities can be found in earlier posts.

All three pans were left to simmer for another half hour, before straining off the dye, and washing and rinsing the skeins until the water ran clear. Given my earlier anxiety about insipid colours, I was quite pleased with the results of my labours, from left to right mordanted/assisted with alum, copper, tin and iron respectively.

So what to try next? Dandelion leaves, or nettles or dock leaves, or even some of the new green shoots that are appearing on the trees? Where will my fancy take me, I wonder?