I have a bunch of Knomad merino minis - these are DK weight and I would like to use them to knit a pair of Minnesota mittens to replace a colorful pair that is old and worn. I thought it would be fun to see how many colors I can get from walnut leaves.

These mini hanks weigh 20g each and I will start with fourteen. I have already scoured them all but will only mordant ten of them. I want to dye four without mordant.

I could mend them and I probably will, but they are much-washed and have felted just enough to be a bit too tight for me. And, my eyes are so used to the textures of undyed and naturally dyed wool these days, the aniline colors seem a bit too strong and too solidly monochrome.

It has plenty of low branches that should probably be pruned next year, so they seem likely to be good donors. I am only going to take a few small branches. Walnut leaves make strong dye, and I don’t want to take any more than I need.

My pot weighs about 2333g, so that means I have about 2578-2333 = 245g of leaves. That will be plenty for this little project.

I am going for the off-center photos today. I have 20g x 10 = 200g of fiber. 30g of alum seems like a bit much but we’ll go there.

It is always a good idea to wet your fiber before mordanting.

I will heat the alum-water to 180F and let the wool sit and consider its future for about 45 minutes.

Whenever I can, I use rainwater or water from the dehumidifier for my dyes.

I will heat the leaves to just under a simmer and then hold them there for about an hour. Then if I am feeling thorough, I will cool them and repeat the process.

I will save these and add them to the original dye bath for a second cooking once my first batch of yarn is finished bathing.

And here is the dye, ready to go.

This looks unsettlingly like the mordanted yarn but there were only four of these in a little pile, so I am 99% sure that they did not go into the mordant bath.

I am only dyeing two hanks here. I will save the other two for the second exhaust.

If things go according to plan, and you never know with natural dyes, this yarn will be a light brown in an hour or so.

I am also going to dye five of my ten mordanted hanks now. The other five will go into the second exhaust.

This looks a lot like the un-mordanted yarn, but we will see.

I will heat this to well under a simmer and then keep it hot for about an hour. I don’t think that walnut dye likes to really cook.

The dye is not very hot yet but the color is already developing well. I am assuming that the yarn to the right is un-mordanted.

I can just see some lighter yarn underneath the richer shade. The colors look pretty much done, but in my experience, a lot of the color in walnut dyes washes out when the yarn is rinsed. It can sit in the dye for another half hour.

All of the yarn seems to be a lovely golden brown color. I will let it sit overnight and then rinse and wash it, and maybe two colors will emerge.

The other seven hanks have gone into the pot and things are looking greeny rather than browny.

I will heat this for an hour and then let it soak overnight in the dye.

It turned out to be much closer to the first exhaust’s color. It is just a paler or, rather, duller version of the first exhaust’s color.

The dye still looks quite a dark green, so I am going to dig out some more fiber and dye another batch. This one will include some cotton fabric. I keep some sitting around, waiting for moments like this. It has already been scoured, mordanted with oak tannin, and then mordanted with aluminum acetate. It is in reality a rather paler color than it looks here, because it is damp. I hope some of the green transfers to it.

This is five more of the 20g hanks. I think they were mordanted but am not 100% sure. This exhaust was unplanned, so I rummaged about for some likely candidates.

I think I will take one out every 30 minutes or so, for the fun of seeing what color gradation I might achieve.

We shall see what we shall see.

I want to see what they look like outside in natural light.

And the fabric is splendid. I am going to dye one more piece of fabric and let it sit overnight, and then recook the leaves I saved after the first dye-making party.

While my dye receives a refresh, I am going to turn to my iron mordanting. Here I have:

1 mordanted hank, first exhaust

1 unmordanted hank, first exhaust

1 mordanted hank, second exhaust

1 unmordanted hank, second exhaust

I labeled them so that I can identify them after the iron dip. Learned to do that the hard way. Always label your stuff.

I bought fresh iron mordant this summer, so this should not take long at all.

I really like the dark brown on the right. I wonder which one that is?

No kidding. I will let them sit for a bit and then rinse them, and then let them sit in soapy water for another bit, and then rinse them again.

The wonderful brown comes from the unmordanted first exhaust plus iron. I am definitely trying that again next year.

We are heavy on the golds and greens. I wonder, maybe I should overdye some of my extra hanks. But in the meantime, I will re-cook the leaves and make some new dye.

They have been sitting outside for a few days. We had a bit of rain finally and they smell like the woods.

I will heat them to just under a simmer for an hour and then let them cool, and then repeat the simmer-stand-cool process again.

I actually have six of these, three without iron mordant and three with. I think I will overdye some of them with other dyes from my garden. I have a couple of extra hanks from my first go as well and will overdye them, too.

Here I have:

1 mordanted hank, 1st exhaust

1 mordanted hank, 2nd exhaust

2 mordanted hanks, 2nd cook of leaves

I plan to overdye these with some dyer’s marigold flowers that I have been collecting for the last month or so.

I pick a bunch of these every couple of days, leaving some for the bees, and let them dry in my basement on parchment paper

I picked about 65g of fresh flowers this morning and then added about 25g more of my dried flowers. They lose a LOT of water weight when they dry, so the dry ones will have a greater concentration of dye.

I have 4 x 20g of fiber, so this will make a quite strong dye. I hope.

Big beans this year.

I heated the flowers to under a simmer for about an hour and then let them sit overnight in the pot, and then I strained them this morning. This looks promising.

I will bring it to just under a simmer and let it sit there for an hour or two, and then let it soak overnight.

It will probably lose some of its color in the rinsing, but it looks good.

These are the colors I got from (left to right):

1) no mordant; 2) alum mordanted; 3) no mordant plus iron; 4) alum mordanted plus iron; 5) alum mordanted plus marigold

left to right:

1) no mordant; 2) alum mordanted; 3) no mordant plus iron; 4) alum mordanted plus iron; 5) alum mordanted plus marigold

All alum mordanted; left to right:

1) 30 minutes; 2) 1 hr; 3) 1.5 hr) 4: 2 hr; 5) 16 hr.

The last hank turned quite yellow after it was rinsed and dried, maybe because I kept it in the pot overnight and not for just a few hours?

from left to right:

1) mordanted; 2) mordanted plus iron; 3) mordanted plus marigold.

same as above, but at the right we have mordanted plus iron plus marigold. The yarn felted just a bit with all of the attention I gave it, but it will still knit up just fine.

left to right:

1) first exhaust no mordant; 2) first exhaust mordanted; 3) second exhaust no mordant; 4) second exhaust mordanted.

left to right:

1) first exhaust, no alum mordant, 2) first exhaust; alum mordant, 3) second exhaust; no alum mordant; 4) second exhaust, alum mordant.

From left to right (all alum mordanted):

1) first exhaust; 2) second exhaust; 3) second cooking of leaves.

I should be able to squeeze a few mittens out of these!