Before and After

In the past week, three friends have given me fabric and linens.  I’ve received wool, barkcloth, commercial linens, and handmade lace.  Am I excited?  Oh, yes!  As I dig deeper in the boxes, I discover more and more treasures.

Some of these treasures have been swimming in the walnut bucket.  I even strained the old walnuts out to make a cleaner bath for them.  

These are the same walnuts I collected in the fall.  I put them in a bucket of water, let them ferment a while, then dipped some treasures.  I wrote about the first ones here.  

That mixture sat through the winter months.  Yesterday, Jim helped me pour the mixture through a bit of cheesecloth to see what months of stewing would do to the dye.  I photographed the results in pairs…before and after.

I had hoped to dye some of the tatting black.  I love this coffee shade I got, but the next step is to dip some in an iron water bath to make it darker.  I have nails sitting in water now.

In December, our friend Paul was visiting and told me he had bought some hats to wear to work.  But they were white.  VERY white.  He wondered if there was some way he could get them darker.  I said, “I happen to have some walnuts in a bucket of water outside if you want to try that.”  He was willing to let me dip his hat.  Here are the results.  Paul was happy. 

I guess you noticed most all these brown beauties were posing on an indigo dyed linen tablecloth….I can’t wait to stitch some of this blue and brown together!