Apple Prunings

Last week, I emptied the apple prunings from my garden out of the tub where they'd been stewing for over week, and into my slow cooker, with the aim of helping the slow process of dye release on its way.

Now at last, I've got around to emptying my slow cooker and dying four more skeins of wool with the apple-stained broth. The dye bath looked rather weak and unpromising, but the results were quite good. I'm struck by the contrast with using Procion dyes, where the dye bath usually looks concentrated but there is often quite a lot of dyestuff left over in the bath after use. So far as my experience of natural dying has been concerned, to date the dye baths have looked relatively weak but nearly all of the dyestuff has been exhausted from the bath during the dyeing process. Far more environmentally friendly in every way! From the left, my skeins were mordanted with alum, copper, alum plus tin and alum plus iron.