More on Mystery Fibre Dye

Mystery Fibre

The dye results really do not look quite like this - it really is not pink like this. I think the photo explains it all - the 5 different DOS (depth of shade) and how I managed it.

Walnut. Afr. fine wool, BFL nylon

I have had pails of walnuts sitting around all winter & half the summer. I did not husk them; just let them sit. I poured a small pail off through a sieve and just added some roving to a pot. The one on the left is African fine wool, the middle is Blue Faced Leicester, previously woad dyed, and now overdyed w. walnut. The last is some nylon roving.
No mordant needed.

Whoops!! Clun Forest Mittens

Whoops...I forgot to take a photo of the mittens and now they are in the hands of the walnut supplier.
Oh well.

The cuffs were knit with my blend of Canadian merino and Clun Forest. Drun carded, but a tweedy blend which gave the dark walnut colour a little bit of a taupe cast to the colour. Interesting.

The body of the mitt was knit in a slightly lighter walnut shade and the finger tips area was a very dark brown. The thumbs were the very dark brown.

Turned out very nice with the shade variations making it more interesting.

The pattern was made by myself from the measurement of my hands which I believe to be average.

Clun Forest Walnut Dye

This past fall I was given a bag of walnuts from a tree that was felled in Brantford.  I used some & left others soak for a few months. They froze into a solid mass in a 5 gallon pail on my deck. When my hubby decided to get rid of them I decided it might be time to carry through with the project I began those many weeks ago.

I have Clun Forest roving that is very white that would suit the mittens I would like to make as a thank you gift for the walnuts received for the last couple of years to the lady that had the tree.

I have a young walnut tree on the property that only this past season has yielded any walnuts. I was very pleased to have gathered 8 this past fall.

Here it is in pictures.

White Clun Forest roving from ' fibregarden.ca '.

Roving added to dyepot in netting for easy handling.

Starting to take the colour. Temperature being raised to 180F then turned off to soak.

Time to remove the wool.

Draining in sink; ready for rinsing.

Rinsed, spun, ready to hang for drying.

 When this is dry I will show the spinning part of the project.

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.