whatsamadder

Here are my latest samples of walnut hulls with a difference.  After reading Jenny Dean's blog I thought I would try her technique of walnut hulls with a little madder...so I had walnut hulls soaking since the fall, although they were black hulls found on the ground, not green ones, and I had madder from Earthues in the extract format.  I also had some BFL that I had mordanted with alum and COT for other dyeing, and some silk, silk/merino and BFL that I had not mordanted....and proceeded by straining the walnut hulls, then mixing and heavily straining the madder, as I know what it looks like when trapped in roving, not a pretty site, and then put the wools/silks into the vat, and brought to heat slowly and simmered for about 30 minutes, then cooled in the vat....well, was I shocked.  I don't think I had ever pulled wool from a natural dye vat, where the colors were so radicalled different.   Guess which one is the mordanted BFL....so that would be the red one, and the other three starting from the left, BFL (unmordanted) and unmordanted silk roving and silk/merino....apparently that mordant makes one huge difference....
I did save some of the liquor from the walnut hulls, so I can try another type of madder extract and see if that makes a difference.  Jenny tried this with madder in its natural form and did not get these results, leading her and now I, to believe it must be some chemical that they use in extracting process....so all very exciting and it was good to use some of that walnut slurry, although I was impressed that it had no mold on it, and did not smell bad after being contained for many months, other natural dye vats can be quite moldy. 
so onward and upward into the realms of rug weaving and dyeing.