Rag Rug, Part 2: Dyes

With references to dyeing both warp and weft, I decided to try some natural dyeing on my rug materials. 

I first applied an alum mordant to 7 of the 9 skeins of wool rug warp, using the recipe described in Wild Color by Jenny Dean.

Marigold Dye Bath

 

I then made 3 different dye vats. The first was with dried marigold flowers from my last two harvests (about 2 oz pure petals and 3 oz of full flower heads). For the second, I used about ~4oz of powdered madder root.. For both of these dye baths, I first dyed the prepared wool (letting it soak for about 3 hours), then put in mordanted linen thread and some test strips of white cotton (with and without mordants) for the whole afternoon/evening, and finally threw in my unmordanted rag weft to soak overnight.

Marigold and Madder Dye Results.

 

I tried to keep the madder below boiling, to get more of a red than an orange shade, but as the wool dried it shifted from a deep scarlet color to a tomato red, and finally a bright orange. The cotton, meanwhile, dried pale pink. The marigold wool came out dark goldenrod color (in person, it more resembles the image above than the one below), with the cotton coming out a pale Easter egg yellow

 

Marigold-dyed and undyed wool.

 

For the third, I used Dharma's pre-reduced indigo to make a 3-gallon dye vat. I over-dyed two of the marigold-dyed wool skeins, as well as the two un-mordanted skeins. This produced a very dark green (tending black) and a deep indigo blue--the former darkened as it dried, and the latter lightened from a navy blue. I tried overdyeing some pink and yellow rag weft, but instead of purple and green, I got the same deep blue as with white rags. Subsequent batches of rags came out slightly lighter, but still a fairly dark blue.

Green and blue wool dyed with indigo.