Ragweed - Ambrosia artemisiifolia L. - is native to North America. As such, it is unlikely that it was used in medieval Europe for dyeing fabric. But we do know that plant dyes were used. So in order to give it a try, I harvested my ragweed and ended up with several quarts of dye. And still plenty of ragweed to go to the compost pile
I did this project over a weekend in September 2023 (anything to procrastinate yard work). I presented this project at Harvest Moon, in the Province of Malagentia.
I had a TON of this common weed growing between the sidewalk and the road.
It grows between 1'-5' tall in a bushy habit. Has tiny green flowers and propagates by releasing its pollen into the breeze.
I laid the plants on concrete to dry. I moved them about once or twice a day. It took a few days for them to dry out completely.
The weather was dry and around 70deg F.
I used pruning sheers to cut the plants into smaller pieces. I cut stems and leaves. I didn't use the woody bottoms. I wrapped the plant matter in some synthetic mosquito netting.
I ended up with 3 bundles of plant matter, each weighing about 6 oz
I used a stainless steel dye pot (a second hand store find). I put in enough hot tap water to just submerge the plant matter. This ended up being 2 gallons of water.
It took about 20 minutes to reach a simmer. Then I simmered it for an hour. I left it covered while simmering. It was very smelly. I left it to cool till lukewarm for a further 4 hours
This is what the dye looked like with the leaves still in there.
The netting took this lovely yellow color.
I squeezed as much liquid out of the plant matter as I could. This is what the dye looked like.
I got about 8 quarts of dye from one of the bundles of plant matter.
The wool yarn (left) in it's original color. The yarn (middle) came out yellowish. The piece of wool on the right was more brownish.
It's interesting that the synthetic netting took the yellow much better than the wool. I didn't use any mordant. Next time I will.