The Last of the Weld Dye Bath

A couple of weeks ago, I dyed 25 skeins of wool with weld, using a method given in Jenny Dean's book 'Wild Colour'.

I decided to re-use the weld, to see if I could extract more colour. I put half back into the dye pan, steeped it, and used it straight away, with good results; some less intense, but interesting shades.

I put the rest in my slow cooker, left it on in the greenhouse, and promptly forgot about it! I rediscovered it over a week later, by which time most of the liquor had evaporated, leaving a very unpromising and smelly pan of mush. However, I dyed four skeins with the liquid that was left, and obtained some quite intense yellow shades.

From the left, un-mordanted, mordanted with alum, with copper and with alum and tin. I'll try not to do that again, but these will be added to my yellow skeins that are waiting to be over-dyed with woad.