What a great weekend.
14 spinners / knitters / dyers met at my home and we played for the entire day on Saturday. Several wheels were turning, lots of knitting and 3 natural dye pots were simmering away.
The black walnut hulls closely resembled sludge. My fault. I had stored them in a plastic bag for 2 years and when they were put into the water they became something other than what they were supposed to be. The yarn came out a grey brown rather than the soft, rich brown that I have gotten with them in the past. Oh, well, there's always over dyeing!
The annatto seeds produced a soft pastel and not the anticipated deeper color. The cheesecloth the seeds were wrapped in was a much richer color than the fiber we put in to be dyed.
The coreopsis turned out to be a strong dyebath , if a somewhat stinky one. The color was a rich golden yellow . I put cotton and also silk in all the dyebaths. The other dyers were using wool.
I'm going to make another dyebath today and try to pull more color out of the annatto. I think we might have blown a fuse and didn't get the full heat we needed on the hot plates. That could account for the paler colors. We'll see.
Picture will be posted when I get them taken.
One interesting note...I had some cotton that I had mordanted years ago with alum/tannin/alum and it took all the colors beautifully.
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