The flowers of yellow cosmos are not only a beauty in the garden, they also yield a variety of vibrant colours.
I'll give a short overview of a few colours you can achieve with this wonderful flowers.
The yellow and orange flowers both give the same results. I haven't tried other cosmos.
The wool is first mordanted with alum. A mordant is needed to fix the dye to the fibers. I use the natural rock alum, I am lucky to have a supplier in this area.
After boiling the flowers in water, I put the wool in the dyebath and let it boil until desired colour intensity. This will give a yellow colour.
Now the fun starts. We can modify the yellow colour in many different ways:
-soak in water with vinegar: the colour will turn more into a lemon yellow.
-soak in water with soda: this yields a bright orange.
-soak in rusted nail water (this is obtained by putting rusted nails in water and vinegar for at least a few days): you'll get an olive green.
-soak in rested nail water, rinse and soak in soda water: the wool becomes rust brown to dark warm brown.
I only use natural and non toxic ingredients in my natural dye techniques. This keeps it safe for me and for the planet.
One of my result with yellow cosmos dyes:
