I Grew Coreopsis Flowers and Turned Them into Beautiful Natural Dyes
This summer I grew an abundance of Coreopsis flowers in my garden! Coreopsis flowers produce a perfect rusty pumpkin orange color on natural fibers. Dyeing with Coreopsis is easy, and I’ll walk you through each step.
Growing Coreopsis Flowers
Choosing the Right Variety
There are many varieties of Coreopsis, but Coreopsis tinctoria is the variety that produces the richest dye. I purchased my seeds from Bedhead Fibers, but Farm and Folk also sells seeds when in season. I’m hoping to grow enough next year to sell seeds too!
Planting and Growing Conditions
Coreopsis needs healthy, well-draining soil, rich in organic matter. I have been slowly building up the soil in my garden for several years, and I planted the Coreopsis in one of the less developed spots, where the soil is slightly more dense and not as fluffy and rich as other areas. However, it’s not completely awful soil, and it still had the correct PH balance (I had all my soil tested, and modified the PH with garden lime.) The coreopsis grew very well! As I improve my soil with time, I’m sure these dye flowers will grow even more abundantly.
I started by sprinkling coreopsis seeds onto my prepped soil in mid March. I used a rake to lightly cover them in soil. After a week or two, little feathery plants were shooting up. By June, I was harvesting flowers.
Coreopsis requires full sun and regular watering. Take special care not to let new little seedlings dry out. Keep them moist. Once the plants have grown a few inches, you can add a layer of mulch around them to help retain soil moisture.
Harvesting Coreopsis for Dyeing
Coreopsis grows as a feathery stalk to about 2-3 feet high, and then beings to produce flowers at the tops of the stalks. Once your coreopsis is blooming, pluck off just the flowers (no stems.) This will encourage even more flower growth. Collect the flowers in a basket every other day or so. You can dye with fresh flowers, however, most people will need to collect and dry flowers gradually throughout the growing season in order to have enough to dye with.
After each harvest, empty your basket onto some kind of drying rack. I used a spare window screen set on top of a laundry rack. I also have this mesh collapsible tower, and this mesh rolling tower that are perfect for drying flowers, herbs, and wet fiber. I recommend drying flowers indoors so the flowers don’t blow away or get rained on.
When your flowers are fully dry, save them in an airtight container. I highly recommend tucking in some silica gel packets amongst the flowers to absorb any extra moisture. Dried flowers will last for months if kept dry. However, if you are not going to use your flowers within the next few months, I recommend freezing them.
Making the Dye Bath
To make a dye bath with dried Coreopsis flowers, you need to consider the weight of the fibers you’d like to dye, and how deep of a shade you want to achieve. You will weigh out your flowers based on a percentage of the weight of your fiber. For a rich orange shade, I decided to do 100% of the weight of my fiber, or WoF. Anywhere from 25%-100% is typical when dyeing with flowers. I had about five ounces of fiber, so I used five ounces of flowers. If you use fewer flowers, you will get a paler color, and more flowers will produce a deeper color.
Put the flowers in a large pot of water and heat to a gentle simmer. Hold at that gentle simmer for one hour. Do not boil the Coreopsis, this may alter the color.
After one hour, strain out the liquid from the flowers, collecting the liquid into a large pot. I use these really nice fine mesh strainers that fit over a stock pot or five gallon bucket. This orange liquid is your dyebath, and it’s ready to use.
Preparing the Fiber
When dyeing with Coreopsis, you must use natural fibers, and those fibers must be mordanted. I used alum as a mordant for the wool I dyed this time. For mordanting instructions, read here. For the cotton, I purchased Dye-lishus cotton, which doesn’t need to be mordanted due to a special treatment. This type of cotton also requires much less dye. Read more here.
Before adding the fiber to the dyebath, soak it thoroughly in water.
Dyeing Process
Add the soaked fibers to the dyebath. If dyeing wool or other animal fibers, be sure the temperature change from the soaking water to the dyebath is minimal. Either use a cool soak and move to a cool dyebath, or a hot soak and move to a hot dyebath. Do not move animal fibers from a cool soak to a hot dyebath. Sudden temperature changes can felt animal fibers instantly.
Once the fiber is in the dyebath, heat the water to a gentle simmer. Hold the temperature there for one hour. Then, turn off the heat and let the fiber cool in the dyebath. Remove the fiber and rinse until the water is clear. To avoid agitating your fiber, rinse by soaking it in a pot of water for about thirty minutes. Drain and repeat until the water is clear.
If the dyebath (not the rinse water) is still richly colored, consider adding more mordanted fiber to use up the rest of the dye. Heat to a near simmer and hold for about an hour. Sometimes your dyebath will turn out to be exceptionally rich. I was able to dye almost twice as much fiber as I’d planned. Bonus!
The Finished Product
With my five ounces of dried flowers, I was able to dye about twelve ounces of wool and cotton. I dyed some Cheviot wool sliver, which spins into a lovely rustic yarn, some soft Corriedale wool, which is next-to-skin soft, some Louisiana grown Romney wool, and some cotton sliver. All of these beautiful pumpkin shades will make their way into my shop soon in various forms! Head over and take a look at what I’ve got for sale. Your purchases support me and my bunnies, my family, and Louisiana fiber farmers.
Thank you for all you do to support Spindle and Spoon Homestead. Whether you’re a fiber artist purchasing my spinning fibers, or a curious person watching my videos, or making purchases through my affiliate links, it all helps, and I couldn’t do this without y’all!
Want to learn more about natural dyeing?
Read my posts about growing and dyeing with indigo:
How to Extract Indigo from Leaves
Mesmerizing Indigo Dye: Two Simple Projects with Fresh Leaves
Leave a Reply