Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Overdue.

Well. So that absense was longer than I'd planned.

The Beast will likely wake from his nap any minute, so this will be short. I made black walnut dye! And tincture, but it's still "cooking" for another week or so.



The Elf and I gathered a slew of walnuts from our grocery store parking lot. I had so many and no one to pawn them off onto. We ended up composting half a bag of them.



These were my experiments. I didn't use a mordant, nor did I dye using heat. I just let it soak overnight and rinse-rinse-rinsed forever. The bottom layer is an old (previously white and well-loved) playsilk. The rolled up piece is a 75% wool, 25% nylon double-knitted sock yarn. The center is Sawya by Mirasol (pima cotton, alpaca, and silk - mostly cotton). The far right is a 100% wool that a friend sent me once upon a time (I've been slowly dyeing bits of it for projects). I think it's fascinating how different (yet similar) the colors are.

Tomorrow I hope to dye a cotton shirt and some wool felt. Yay!

On the gnome front, meet my newest favorite addition!



If my internet connection decides to like me again (as I've lost connectivity while writing this!), there will be some new (really new!) additions to my shop this afternoon (and more in the next few days as well).

4 comments:

  1. How fun to dye with walnuts, one day I am going to have to try this.
    Oh, and that is a cute gnome!
    xx

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  2. I'm loving your new gnomes! And that dye turned out really pretty. We have a big black walnut tree in our yard but I hate them. This might make a fun use for them.

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  3. Your gnomes are so cute! Can't wait to see what other new additions will be in your shop!!

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  4. What a cute gnome! Love the walnut dye. K always has walnut dyed hands from playing with the fallen walnuts at school.

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