Some things are not what you expect!!

From this......The lovely lavender geraniums that I have all over to this.....
The color started out a nice hot pink in the beginning and then went to this. I would say its a burn orange in liquid form. So I put some roving in some small jars that I had pre mordant with alum and cream of tarter and what did I get????

I would describe the colors as golden honey, the darker one which was coopworth roving and the lighter one as blonde mink. That roving was merino superwash. Both started out natural. The lighter one is shaded quite a bit, not sure if you can see it really in the pictures but its there. I have to say I LOVE both colors but certainly not what I thought I would get from lavender geraniums. But that's the beauty of natural dyeing you just never know. And the dyeing was done solar!! The mordant was done on the stove though. I have many of these plants so I think I am going to do a very large dye pot of this in the near future. I really have to get much more and much larger dye pots. This dyeing is just way toooooooo much fun!!
On a funny note.. My poor DH the other day says to me ....You know when I came home from work I opened the fridge and freaked out. Why i asked?? I was at work when he came home. Because he said, I saw this big bowl and it was red inside and I had to open it to see what was in there. I looked at him kind of strangely and said why, its just cut up watermelon. Then he says yeah I saw but I thought it was .... YARN!! I thought you had one of your concoctions in the fridge!!! LOL Can you imagine??? That's bad when your family is expecting to see a dye concoction and yarn in the fridge and it wouldn't surprise them!! But they encourage my fiber adventures and never give me a hard time about it.
Right now I have worsted weight in logwood purple with tin mordant on the stove cooling and then in a few days I will add the indigo to the urine vat. My DH was nice enough to contribute every morning to help the cause, though he thinks that's a bit nasty as he says. And I have some small jars of roving the was pre mordanted in alum/cream of tarter in marigold dye liquid. The marigolds gave of a weak yellow so we shall see. The sage yuck threw it out, the primrose really the same as the marigold, the stella di orio lily not so good and the creopsis an orange but then again who knows. I have tiger lily in a jar and its a lovely orange, and my red lily's cant remember the name of them and that is a strange color. Kind of red orange. I am still collecting flowers for the lily dyes and leaving them in the sun, we shall see. So that is my dyeing adventures so far.
Have to go, the dye pots are calling me!!!

Fresh brewed yarn!!

Just some pictures of the coffee yarn and the jars. The coffee yarn I am quite happy with. One skien I forgot to moisten first and its a bit lighter, but I still like it. The jars are almost there, just a few more days I think.

So far so good!

So I still have my jars in the sun and have added a couple more, geraniums and a type of lily. Stella D'Orio Lily to be exact and the colors are coming. But the weather here has not been super so its slow going. The dandelion root did nothing so I dumped that to make room for more lilies soon to bloom. I also put some sage in a jar but so far I am less than thrilled with it, we shall see. The geraniums are great, such a great color, and I mixed my lavendar and hot pink flowers together. I really need to start boiling this stuff too.
The indigo vat...well still collecting so far and then after that sits for a bit I will add the indigo, I think by next week I should be ready. We shall see what happens there.
I am going to order some more natural dyes too, and some mordants. I have been checking the Ravelry boards and seeing what everyone is doing and getting lots of ideas.
In fact I dyed some yarn with my left over coffee and it came out so pretty. I have it drying right now but pics to come. As I said so far so good. It is a learning process and I am learning a lot. The Ravelry board is a great source for information. In fact I have to order 2 books on dyeing. These 2 books seem to be what most are recomending so thats what I will get. I must say I am getting tons of pleasure from doing the natural and solar dyeing. Its just something I am enjoying learning about and playing with.
Well I will let you all know what happens with my experiments.

And so it begins.....

So I have wanting to try my hand at dyeing. And so after checking many blogs and reading as much as I can find on-line about it, I haven't gotten any books yet, I have started!! In my backyard is a VERY sunny spot, it stays that way all day so that is where my solar dye jars are now sitting. And also much to my husbands dismay is my indigo vat, my urine indigo dye vat that is! Yes I am going to try to do a urine dye vat, why??? Why not?? I am all for natural and the old ways and that is a natural as it gets folks! Hubby is doing his bit by donating the morning pee, but other than that says its disgusting. What does he know LOL Any way I have my jars with creopsis, marigold, evening primrose and dandelion root sitting there. Of course today is not very sunny, it figures. But tomorrow the rest of the week looks good so I should have some results soon.
The creopsis started turning right away, not sure about the rest of them. Also on the stove is a pot of yarn and fiber in Alum to get mordanted!! So hopefully soon I will be able to do some great dyeing. I must thank everyone for answering all my many questions and helping me get started. Oh and here are some pictures of my jars and my "vat".