Welcome to the Marigold Quilt dye and sew along! I’ve noticed the kits making their way to you and it makes me so happy. In this first post I cover the natural dyeing aspect of the kit: scouring the fabric, treating it with tannin and mordant, and finally dyeing it two shades of yellow. I’ll share some tips I gleaned from making the sample quilts for this project and lots more. Please email or direct message me some photos of your dye work so I can share them here in next weeks post. Let’s dive in and get dyeing!

My grandma always made quilts with unbleached cotton backs. I love the way that looks so when designing this quilt I had an undyed quilt back in mind. If you prefer a dyed back be sure to refer to the tips I included in the instructional booklet. The backing fabric is the largest piece of the three (the folded piece). The pieces you will be dying are contained in the roll so grab those and we’ll begin by scouring.

SCOUR

Scouring is not the most exciting step in the process but it’s really important so be sure not to skip it. Cotton fabric contains some gunk that needs to be removed so that the mordant and dye can attach. Follow the scouring instructions in the booklet and if you prefer more extensive and visual instructions click over to this blog post I wrote. In that post I share before and after photos of the scouring water where you can see all the gunk that came out of the fabric. After scouring you will need to rinse the fabric in cool water a couple times to get the suds out.

TANNIN BATH

I talk a lot about tannin and how it works in my book Farm & Folk Quilt Alchemy (pages 29-33) and also in this blog post, so I won’t be redundant in explaining it in great detail here. In a basic nut shell, tannin helps cellulose fibers accept alum. The tannin included in this kit is a clear tannin derived from gallnuts. Tannin can become damaged at high temperatures so be sure your water temperature does not exceed 120°F. Follow the instructions in the booklet. and steep the fabric for 2-6 hours. Often longer steep times will yield stronger more stable colors when you apply dye.

MORDANT BATH

Okay, you’re getting closer to the exciting part! In the natural dye process a mordant’s job is to ensure that dye colors are permanent and lasting. Without its help the colors will wash and fade away. If you’re curious and want to learn more about this alchemy check out pages 34-37 of my book. Alum is the mordant that I work with and to be specific I prefer potassium aluminum sulfate which is the alum included in your kits. The mordant bath is set up the same way as the tannin bath with hot tap water. Follow the instructions in your booklet and refer again to the previously mentioned blog post I wrote about mordanting if you prefer more visually detailed instructions. Let’s move along to the fun part now shall we?

DYEING WITH MARIGOLDS

The fun part! Here we go! Okay, so our goal for this pattern is to create a lighter marigold shade value on the larger piece of khadi and a darker marigold shade value on the smaller piece of khadi. In the instruction booklet I suggest using 1/4th of the marigolds to dye the first (larger) piece of fabric. This worked for me but my friend shared her results with me and 1/4th was too strong so I suggest using even less than 1/4th of the marigolds and I have an additional tip for you as well. Set up the marigold dye bath as explained in the instructions. If you have an extra dye pot fill it with roughly the same amount of water that’s in your marigold dye bath and heat the water to about the same temperature as your dye bath. This pot of hot water will be your stop bath. For the first (larger) piece of fabric you need to achieve a light yellow shade. As soon as your fabric becomes light yellow remove it from the dye bath and pop it into that hot water bath. The fabric needs to remain in the dye bath or the hot water bath for a total of 45 minutes to ensure a good bond to the fabric. For example if your fabric was in your dye bath for only 5 minutes before you reached a light yellow shade, you will need to pop it into the hot water stop bath for 40 minutes. To create the darker shade on the smaller piece of fabric add the rest of the marigolds to the dye bath and cook that piece in the dye bath for 45 minutes. Use the stop bath in the same way if you need to prevent it from becoming too saturated. Follow the final rinsing instructions in the booklet. If you can, it’s good to wait a few days after dyeing to let the color cure on the fabric before doing the final rinses.

A NOTE ABOUT COLOR VALUE

If you have a problem creating two distinct color value shades don’t worry! First of all the quilt looks great even if you’re only able to achieve one value or two very similar values. If it’s important to you to have those two distinct values you can always darken the smaller piece. A simple way to darken or sadden a naturally dyed fabric is to modify it with iron (see page 36-37 of my book). If you decide to go this route I suggest beginning with a ferrous sulfate bath of only 1% WOF. Increase to 2% WOF if needed but I wouldn’t go above that or the fabric will turn brown or gray. Another thing you could do is overdye the smaller piece with another natural dyestuff like ground madder root at 3-7% WOF. This would slightly change the shade giving it just enough of a difference from the other piece. Try to be openminded about the colors not being exactly what you wanted them to be or expected them to be. I find that if I can overcome my expectation I’m able to see the beauty for what it is rather than as an unexpected disappointment.

If you have any questions go ahead and ask away in the comment section below! Please note that I’m off traveling this weekend. I’ll check in here as often as possible to answer questions but I won’t be able to answer right away. Thanks for understanding!

I will have part 2 ready for you next Friday. See you then!