Ivy: a failed experiment

So I had my first failure yesterday. I picked some Ivy leaves, stems and berries from the garden and stewed them for an hour, as one does with fresh leaves. I mashed them with a potato masher, but hardly any pigment came out. I popped some skeins into the strained liquor, to see if a miracle occurred, but it didn't! In the end, I kept the skein mordanted with copper because it gave me a soft olive green, but as the skeins mordanted with alum stayed almost the same colour as before they entered the bath (just looking a little dirtier), I washed them out to use again. Still, I've achieved the first green of the season, albeit unintentionally!