Walnut Dye

And today, the last of my three days off I boiled up some walnuts a friend had given me last fall. They had been sitting in plastic bags on my deck all winter and just the other day, a critter of some sort had nibbled into a bag. So without looking at them more than I had to, I loaded them into my dye pots & boiled for 1 and a half hours. It did look inky. The smell sort of reminded me of the smell of chocolate baking. Just 'sorta'. Otherwise it was bearable; not too bad.  

The fibre selected was 104 g BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) which I soaked in soapy water then did an iron mordant for 45 minutes at a simmer. Afterwards I washed & rinsed the fibre. The dyebath was prepared by now & I strained one pot for this to be a strong dyebath. I added the fibre & simmered for 1 hour. 

After removing the fibre from the dyebath, I placed the fibre into a container of very hot tap water to which I added 4 T. vinegar. I let it soak for 10 minutes. 

Fibre was then washed, rinsed, washed and rinsed several times until the water was fairly clear. After wuzzing, I spread it out to dry in a sunny & breezy spot.
Here's what it looks like drying.

BFL walnut dyed. Iron mordant. Vinegar rinse.

 Not quite as dark as I had hoped.

More Dyes of June 2112. Woad. Indigo.

 

And then the next day I used the plants from which I did an extraction the day before.

From extracted woad leaves. BFL top.

Dye Days are Challenging

Isn't this lovely? Wouldn't you like to spin this?
This is the result of painfully using a dog comb to remove dandruff -thick, sticky- from this lovely wool fleece and then using my drum carded to card it into batts. Using my woolcombs wouldn't remove the dandruff; I suppose they are too coarse for such work.
I'm not clear if this is Suffolk or an E. Friesian yearling fleece. It wasn't labeled when I received it, and the fact the shepherd gave me three fleece in one box and confusion set in by the time I arrived home.
This took a lot of work, but I had a great time doing this project & learned a bit in the process.
Here is the spun 2 ply, and it is semi worsted spun.
I have about 383 yds. of a nice heathery blend.
Some of the colours were dyed with rhubarb and some with Greener Shades dyes. This looks rather grey in the photo, but it is livelier in person & I am pleased with the results.

Should be enough here for a hat & mitts.
Here is some of the blending process.