Coreopsis

Coreopsis flowers in my planters.

This past summer I planted and grew my first dye flower - coreopsis! Actually, this is the first time I’ve attempted to grow anything and what a phenomenal success it has been! In fact, it’s been four months now since I first planted the seeds and there are still fresh coreopsis blooms popping up almost daily!

June 23, 2024 - the day I planted Coreopsis seeds.

I truly had no idea just how bountiful my Coreopsis flowers would become. I figured they’d bloom once and that would be the end of it. I couldn’t have been more wrong! I’ve since learned that when you harvest the flowers, the plant spends more energy to continue to produce even more buds! This is great news as a natural dyer! Every few days I would harvest hundreds of blooms - around 500 each time - from my eight pots and the next day I’d wake up to brand new blossoms emerging! This went on and on for three months.

Fresh coreopsis blooms ready to harvest and many more buds getting ready to bloom.

I spent many weeks this summer harvesting flowers and drying them in my dehydrator. I’ve got a nice supply of dried coreopsis awaiting future dye projects. I was also able to create fresh dye baths as well as collect hundreds of fresh blooms to use in bundle dyeing! This is an extremely fun dyeing technique which leaves imprints of the blooms directly on the yarn, creating interesting speckles of color wherever the blooms come into direct contact with the yarn.

An ecoprint of a coreopsis bloom on merino wool.

Fresh coreopsis blooms on merino wool.

By combining dye methods and dye materials, I had a blast creating some fun, seasonal colorways to celebrate both autumn and Halloween. Some of these yarns are already available in the shop and others will be arriving soon!

Coreopsis-dyed yarn displayed with my coreopsis plants.