Ironweed as a Dye Plant

You may have seen tall purple flowers waving in the breeze along the highway.  It is a plant called Giant Ironweed (Vernonia Gigantea). 

For natural dyeing purpose, there is a large range of colors available from this plant with various mordants and modifiers. 

I was surprised by the results.  

The first time I dyed with this plant, I used alum mordant and added an iron modifier.  After the first skein resulted in a deep charcoal color, I removed the skein, and saw that there was a great deal of pigment left in the dyepot.  So I dyed three additional skeins, each resulting in a lighter variation of grey.  I used rhubarb leaves (oxalic acid)  as a mordant for a couple of skeins. 

The second time I dyed with this plant, I used an alum mordant.  I cut the flowers off the stems and prepared two dye baths, one with only the purple flowers, and one with the deep green leaves and reddish stems. 

Flower dyepot

The purple flowers resulted in a reddish liquid. 

But the yarn did not take the red dye (stain?).  It looked like spaghetti, with a yellowish cast.  I didn't particularly like the color.   But I left the yarn in to simmer for an hour.  

After an hour, the yarn had taken on a rich, grey-green color.                 

I wanted to know what would happen with an acidic or basic modifier, so I split the exhaut pot into two and added baking soda to one and vinegar to the other. 

The acidic modifier did push the color towards mauve, but on drying it was more of a taupe.  

When I added the baking soda to the exhaust liquid, the dyebath foamed up and almost overflowed the small pot I had it in.  It was a bright green.  But the result ended up being a light yellow.