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Monday December 7, 2009
Walnuts
George has long been complaining (quite justifiably) about my walnut collection. He collected them from our trees in France - with husks - some months ago. First they sat around in a plastic bag going mouldy - and at intervals he tried to throw them away. Eventually I put them into an old tin bath supplied by G's Mother with some water and left them to "mature". They have been on the boiler, keeping warm and infusing for a few weeks - and at intervals George has suggested throwing them away.
Now Christmas is approaching and I decided it was now or never - George would stop politely suggesting throwing them away and would be driven to action.
I prepared some fleece, and simmered it in the strained dye bath. My book advises not to leave it in for "longer than necessary" as walnut can harden the fleece; I always struggle with advice like this, though - how can I know what is necessary? However I took out test pieces and washed them through pretty vigorously with soap until the point at which the fleece retained some colour. This was much as advised - 45 minutes simmering at about 80 degrees.
Walnut is self-mordanting and the colour has turned out a pinkish beige - it looks very like the sample photo in my book. It is the pretty much the colour I was looking for ("grey-beige") which I plan to use for the Icelandic Shawl pattern. I have already spun some Southdown 2 ply natural fleece for this project - now I need 3 shades of blue/grey to get started (for which I plan to use a commercial dye).
The other walnut colours shown in my book, Spinning and Dyeing (by Gill Dalby and Liz Christmas), have made me want to try pre-mordanted wool, and to that end I have sent off for some mordants - poisonous and otherwise - to try out further samples with my bath. A little project for after Christmas.
Posted by Christina at 12:41 PM. Category: Spinning, Dying, Weaving
