solar dyeing results.

a few months ago now, i posted about a little solar dyeing project i put together.
i waited until the 3-month mark ticked over this wednesday just gone...



and then got to pulling that sweet skein out to have a look!

i gave it a little rinse where unfortunately it lost a wee bit of colour. it dried outside overnight, thanks to the unseasonably warm autumn weather we've been having.



oh the possibilities!

i've got plans for this beauty, involving some fair isle, and the leftover naturally dyed skeins from this hat.
now to find the time to knit it...

dyeing to knit.

the last little while, i've been playing around with a bit of yarn dyeing.
i talked about one project in this post, but since then, i've been doing even more!



i had these few vessels just slowly ticking away, doing their thing.
the pot in front, had a bath of acidified avocado pits with half a skein of bendigo bamboo sock wool, anticipating a nice light and subtle pink.
the white lidded jar, housed the other half of the skein of sock wool. after not getting a nice light pink from it after soaking it in with the avocado pits, i popped it in here with some red food dye and added some vinegar to the avocado bath to see if that changed anything...



as you can see, i didn't quite get the subtle pink i was after from the front pot, but the food dye, well it sure did the trick!
i'm knitting these two together for a hat project i'm hoping to share a little more about soon.

the orange lidded jar, well i have no results from that one as the yarn is still in there! perhaps i'll find some time over the weekend to fish out what's in there and give it a rinse.
i'm hoping for a nice green gradient for a pair of socks. we'll see what happens!

before that though, the jar housed a different dye experiment...



i put together another solar dyeing jar with walnut shells, though this time with a skein of linen, instead of woollen yarn way back in november.

after four months, the results were a little lighter than last time...



but still a nice little bit of warmth to what was a very cool skein of white...

that might be the end of my dyeing for a little while, i'm basically out of white yarns in my stash he he. plus i have plenty to knit with for now too!

have you ever tried any fiber dyeing at home?

having a crack.

yesterday i woke up feeling tetchy.
and the longer i was awake, the tetchier i felt. checking social media and emails. having a shower.
in my tetchy state, i flopped back onto the bed, checked social media and email again, and began playing a game on my phone.

now the real reason for my tetchiness? i was stroppy as i felt that i hadn't had a chance to do anything i really wanted to get done this month... working full time these past couple of weeks, coupled with my days off being quite warm had left me ridiculously pooped!
yet here i was, with time to spare, playing a game on my phone?? how ridiculous!

i dragged my butt off the bed, chucked on some clothes and got to work. tidying the kitchen and bedroom a little, watering the plants in preparation for another hot one, AND something i've been thinking about since the weekend...
solar dyeing.



on saturday morning, i picked up a veggie box from rohan, aka wholelarderlove and inside was a generous handful of walnuts. still in their shells! once i got into work, i hunted down a hammer, and got to cracking, revealing the delicious nut inside. but what to do with the shells?
i contemplated taking them home for the worm farm, but then remembered back to all of the instagram pictures i've been seeing the last couple of months of folks using natural dyeing ingredients and the heat of the sun in a jar to get some awesome dyed yarn and fabric!



so back to yesterday morning, and after doing those few chores, i set to setting up the dye jar above.
winding off my ball of yarn into a skein, giving it a good soak, and layering the walnut shells above and below it in the jar, topping it off with water and setting it in a nice sunny spot on the front doorstep.

now, will i have the patience to wait a while longer before pulling it all apart to see the results? hopefully!
though after the stinker of a hot day we had yesterday, the yarn is already looking quite a bit darker than it was when i took these pictures yesterday morning... will definitely be posting an update when it's ready!

oh and i guess i should share some technical details? or as many as i have... the yarn i used was leftover 4ply shilasdair from this hat in colourway 'fleece cloud', a non-dyed yarn. there was probably about 15-20g of yarn left from the 50g skein.
i used approximately the same weight of walnut shells, and tried to bash them up relatively small.
i didn't premordant or anything, other than soaking the skein in water. hopefully that doesn't mean all of the beautiful colour will run out when i rinse it!
this is a one litre jar and everything fit pretty perfectly...

have you tried natural dyeing before? or gotten one of Ro's veggie boxes? what do you do with walnut shells?