To dye or not to dye, natrually that is!

So I am trying my hand at natural dyeing and I have to say I am learning a lot!! Dyeing naturally with flowers and such you don't always get what you think. Also I did an ALL natural indigo vat and what an experience that was. For those of you who are not familiar with it you have to use stale urine for the fermentation of the vat to get the indigo going. So fat I have this to show for it.

I will be re-dipping these at least once more but so far I like what I see. The colors are like a washed denim. Very interesting this sig vat. The last picture on the bottom right is some BFL that my friend Lisa, the Tsocksarina, http://www.tsocktsarina.com/blog/, gave me to throw in there. She spun the yarn herself!!

Anyway as you can see there is quite a bit of shading so to speak and I like it.

Also in my dyeing experiments was marigolds. And this is what I have. A very BRIGHT yellow. The one is coopworth, a bit brighter than the other which is superwash merino.

The dye liquid was really very pale but once I put the roving in it got very bright. In fact when

marigolds where in the sun it looked like there was no color at all in the water, surprise!!! So now I know, yellow, marigolds with Alum mordant=very bright and pretty!!!

So that's my dyeing experiments so far. On the home front, my son moved to Tennessee, but that's a whole blog post in itself and I am not ready for that yet. I am still having some difficulty with my only child leaving the nest and so far to boot!!! But he is happy and his girlfriend is an absolute doll!! So we are lucky to have her as part of the family.

So happy knitting/spinning/crocheting/dyeing or whatever it is you do!!! Till next time.