black walnut

Early last week when I said I was feeling inspired to try dyeing with natural dyes I wasn't just playing around with an idea for the future!  In fact, I couldn't sleep for a few nights just thinking about dyeing and here are the results!

As the title of this post would suggest I used black walnut as the source for my very first natural dye.  I did this for two reasons.  One: black walnut has naturally occurring tannin in the hull, which makes the dye more colorfast than other natural dyes.  This meant I wouldn't be messing around with a mordant on my first try.  And two: the black walnuts were very easy for me to find; I just picked them up off the side of the bike path where I walk the dog in the morning!

The yarn I used is a DK weight 100% wool from Naturally.  The yardage is fantastic at 475 yards a pop!  It was also on sale when I bought it from (can you guess?) Webs.

To make the dye itself (which I didn't take any pictures of, sorry!) I used this article.  It was by far the most in depth and useful source of information on black walnut dye on the internet.  I only used about ten black walnuts, but still got all this great color and have quite a bit left over for other dye experiments!

Speaking of experimenting, that is exactly what I did!  I wasn't sure what to expect, so I split my 475 yards of wonderful wool into six parts (they were supposed to be equal, but that didn't happen) and pulled a skein out every ten minutes.  I was hoping there would be a very large tonal difference between the skeins (more like these) so I could knit something striped, but the saturation differences  are much more subtle.

My other experiment was to add the skeins to the dye bath dry for a kettle dye effect.  This experiment was much more successful, though I hope when I knit these up all the variation won't just look messy! 

With the ten minute skein (left) and mini sixty minute skein (right) next to each other, you can really see the color difference!  I like both colors quite a bit!  Right now my plan for this yarn is to knit a Stockholm Scarf in the round, alternating a few rounds at the beginning/end of each skein.

As for my future dyeing plans?  I have another full skein of the Natural Wool to dye with my leftover black walnut (hand dyed yarn for holiday presents?  You bet!).  But I've also started collecting avocado pits.  They're supposed to make a dusky pink dye.  I was excited to see my first pit oxidize red almost as soon as I chopped it up to keep it in the freezer.  So stay tuned for more dyeing adventures in the future!