For the 2 ounces of onion skins I ended up using 3 ½ ounces (the whole skein) of Patons Classic wool yarn. Because I was feeling lazy and just wanted to jump right into dyeing I didn’t bother with mordanting the yarn. If I had I would have used alum which is my mordant of choice. I soaked the yarn overnight in cool water to thoroughly saturate it.

To prepare the onion skins I placed them in my dye pot and filled it with tap water. I then slowly brought the water to a simmer and held it there for one hour. After that I contemplated straining the dye bath but then decided to let the onion skins sit in it over night and cool.

For day two I was going to strain out the onion skins before adding the yarn to the now cooled dye bath but at the last minute decided to leave them in and see what would happen. I did take a picture of the cooled dye bath and it shows what a deep golden color I ended up with.

To the cooled dye I added my soaked yarn and slowly brought the bath up to a simmer. I keep it at a simmer for one hour. Once it was done simmering I let the yarn cool completely in the bath before I removed it and washed it out.

After I removed the yarn I noted that there was still a significant amount of color left in the dye bath so I decided for the heck of it to see if I could get a little bit more out of it. So, I prepared 1 ½ ounces of wool yarn by soaking it for several hours. I used less yarn this time only because I was unsure of the outcome and didn’t want to waste too much yarn if I didn’t like the results.  No mordant again. I then added this yarn to the pot and simmered for once again another hour.

So to conclude, the first batch of yarn came out a very deep rusty gold color, sort of like a burnt orange and the second batch was very noticeably lighter. It is more of a light red orange. I was actually very surprised by these two batches. I was not expecting such orange colors. But that is the fun part of using natural dyes! You never really know what is going to come out of the dye pot until you are done!

Yesterday I finished knitting this pair of mittens for my youngest son, L-man. He likes bright and crazy colors so these fit his personality perfectly. And I am hoping that considering how bright they are they will be hard to loose! Both yarns I hand dyed. The orange is dyed with annatto seeds. The yellow and green is the yarn that I dyed with marigolds that I posted about: here.

I struggled with finding a pattern I liked for these particular mittens. I ended up using the pattern from One-Skein Wonders titled Easy Mittens. The pattern does not have a ribbed cuff but I added a 2×2 ribbing because I happen to like that look and felt they would stay on an active nine year old a little better. I also modified the pattern a little bit more when it came to sizing because the pattern was designed for a woman’s hand not a child’s. Unfortunately, I had to measure his hand a couple of times and have him try on the mitten half way through to make sure it was fitting right. I say unfortunately because now he knows all about it and I really can not give them as a gift like I had originally wanted! He is excited about them none the less which is cute. Last spring he planted the marigolds from seed so the yarn that was dyed with them has a special meaning to him. I find that to be really cool! He witnessed the whole transformation from start to finish. Pretty darn cool I would say.

Eucalyptus is another herb I really like to have around the house, especially this time of year. It is so good for colds and stuffy noses. I am prone to sinus infections so I like to keep a bottle of eucalyptus essential oil on hand. When my nose is stuffy due to allergies or a cold I will steam my face with a few drops of the oil placed in the steaming water.

A simple salve can be made to which the oil is added and this can be rubbed on the chest to help with congestion. It is like a homemade Vicks vapor rub.  

Another thing I like to do with eucalyptus is to take some dried leaves and simmer them on the stove in some water during periods when everyone is sick. It helps to clear the air as well as make it smell good. You would not want to do this in one of your best pots though as eucalyptus is high in resin as well as it’s essential oil. I like to have a pot that is just for simmering herbs in.

One last thing about eucalyptus, it also makes an excellent dye. A little over a week ago I wanted to experiment and see what color I would get if I used dried leaves purchased from my local health food store to make a dye. The color you get from eucalyptus will depend on the type of tree, growing conditions, etc. You can achieve anything from browns to reds. Unfortunately I do not know what type of eucalyptus makes what color of dye.

 It is a very long process extracting the dye from the leaves of eucalyptus. I simmered the leaves in the dye pot for 2 hours and then let them sit over night. The next day I simmered them again for another 2 hours. Then I was ready to add my wool yarn. I used equal amounts of dried eucalyptus leaves and yarn. And I did not mordant the yarn this time as it is not necessary to do so with this dye. I simmered the yarn in the dye for 2 hours as well. Once it was done simmering I let it sit in the dye bath overnight. A very long dye process!

My end result is a shade of brown that I can’t quite explain. It has a reddish tint to it. Sort of like a rusty brown. It is nice. Although it would have been neat to see it turn out a little more red than brown.

I recently posted about dyeing some yarn with pineapple sage flowers from my garden. I wasn’t all that happy with the results but it was an experiment so I wasn’t too disappointed. My next batch of yarn from the garden was going to be done with marigold flowers. I have been wanting to get to it for awhile now but it was taking foreverto gather enough flowers to dye with. Next year I plan on planting a lot more to prevent this from happening. I did another experiment with some of the marigold flowers. In my garden I have a couple of marigold plants that are the typical orange/gold marigold and a few that are a deep orange red. This picture sort of shows the difference in the two.

For the experiment, I thought I would mix the two types of flowers up instead of keeping them separate when I make the dye bath. The resulting dye was a blood red! I added the yarn that was previously mordanted with alum. Almost instantly it turned a bright yellow. I left it to simmer and was meaning to check on it every 5 minutes but I do have a 13 month old. I ended up having to attend to Princess A and unfortunately the yarn got put on the back burner, literally. The yarn ended up being in the dye about 40 minutes. Way longer than I had intended. That long soak in the simmering dye bath caused it to take on a more brownish-yellow. Still nice but maybe not what I would have gone for had I been able to keep a closer eye on it.

Once it was cool, I decided to try dip dyeing it in an iron modifier. (I will try to explain what exactly is an iron modifier for those who are interested in a future post). I added one end to the pot with the iron modifier and allowed it to simmer for about 5 minutes. This gave one end of the skein an olive green color.

All in all it was not a bad experiment. I only wish I wasn’t interrupted like I was because it would have been nice to have gotten the yarn out of the pot before it started turning more brown. I still like the results though. I did try to over-dye the pineapple sage yarn with the remaining marigold dye. Unfortunately, there was not enough dye left over to really do much but turn it just a little yellow. Now it is more a yellow fawn color! I have yet to have been able to get a decent picture of it otherwise I would post one.

This final picture is of the marigold yarn re-skeined. I love when you re-skein them and all the colors mix. That is always the fun part to me!

My knitting list continues to taunt me. It also continues to grow! This morning my youngest son, L-man I shall call him here, asked me if I could knit him a wool sweater along with the hat and mittens I plan on making for him. He said he wants to be nice and toasty this winter and he loves what I knit for him. How can I resist that?! A soon to be nine year old that actually wants to wear things his mama makes him. Melts my heart. So, now of course I want to start pouring through patterns looking for a perfect sweater to knit for him. I’d love it if I could whip one out in time for Christmas but with everything I got going on these days coupled with all the projects already on my plate that just seems like pulling off the impossible. But, knowing me I probably will give it a shot because I’m just so pleased that he asked for one. Just watch in a few days I will be posting on here about how I have bought the yarn to begin a sweater for him!

On another note, I finished work on the herbal hat for my husband, SET as I will call him. It looks pretty good. I love the colors. I made if from the yarns I dyed out of herbs. The main color, the brown tone, is the yellow dock yarn. The yellow stripe is the tansy yarn and the greenish-gray color is the comfrey yarn. I love how the yellow dock yarn looks. The picture doesn’t really show it but it is marbleized in places and looks so cool like that. That hat is a serious labor of love! I hand dyed the yarn with plants I gathered (some from my own garden) and then hand knitted the whole thing. Some serious love there. I have got some ideas brewing in my head for some more yarns to dye using herbs so be on the look out for those in future posts…….

I have a huge list going right now of knitting projects I want to start. And I just realized not one on there is for me….I need to do something about that. I need to knit everyone some hats, mitten/gloves, socks, a scarf or two, on top of all the cute little things I have in mind for Princess A. I have some soft undyed merino yarn that I am wanting to dye and knit into some long diaper soakers and maybe even add some feet to them. I am wanting to get those going soon before cold weather starts to creep it’s way in. That is ontop of all the sewing I have to do. I never have enough hours in the day to do all that I would like…..