Surrounded By Beautiful Fiber

I love surrounding myself with beautiful fiber.  It just makes me feel happy.  Below is how some of it comes to be.  My friend Cathy had a marigold explosion in her garden and offered me this bag of 3 or 4 different varieties.

So while enjoying the wonderful aroma, I cut the heads off deciding to leave the seeds intact.

Then I soaked the blossoms for 2 days.

After simmering for 45minutes or so I was wondering what the color would come out.  I scooped out the exhausted  flowers 

and put some fleece into the dye bath and it looked like this.  

The fleece had to simmer for about 45 minutes as well.  The fleece had been mordanted with alum and cream of tartar. 

I was looking for an orange but worried this might not be bright enough.  Then when I took it out to rinse and dry, the fleece ended up looking yellow green.  Not orange, but a brilliant color.

 After combing the locks, the color seemed to change again to a more true yellow and still very lustrous.

The fleece above is Cottswold and the fleece below is a Cottswold/CVM cross.

Can't wait to spin this lovely fleece.  Thank you Cathy!