They make a splendid and pretty much mistake-proof dye, especially for the winter months when there are no plants to harvest. I don’t worry much about matching weight of skins to weight of wool here, as the dye is so very strong. I just wait until I have a medium-sized paper bag full of skins and then I dye. I might use about one third as much weight of skins as of wool.

I save all of my onions skins in one paper bag and I like the colors I get. If you use just red, or just yellow, say, you will get a slightly different color than if you do the wholesale dump. Your house will smell like onion soup, yum!

Strain them, compost the skins (or save them for a second, lighter dye), and return your gorgeous orange dye to the pot.

Look at that, color already! I cook it on low heat for about two hours, and I let it sit in the dye overnight.

I have two 100g skeins of natural white yarn and one 100g skein of a natural brown yarn. We shall see if the dye does different things to them.

As you can see, a lot of the dye washed out, but the yarn is a beautiful orangey-yellow.

A dip in an iron mordant solution wrought this change - stunning.

It is hard to tell if they are different or not . . .

They really are close, no? But the brown yarn actually looks a bit lighter, or brighter, to me.