Dyeing with walnuts

We were lucky enough to come across a couple of walnut trees just as the walnuts were dropping at the weekend. Having collected the walnuts  they were prepared - cleaned so we have a tray of maturing walnuts and then a bucket of husks ready to dye with. The husks were simmered gently on the Aga for a couple of hours and then left to cool for 24 hours. After sieving through muslin pieces of old cotton, merino tops and ready spun swaledale were placed in the dye and gently siered for an hour or so. They were then left to cool completely before being drained and washed out. A lovely rusty autumnal colour was the result and there was plenty of strength in the dye left - so I added the old husks back in and more water to simmer up the dye for another batch! I've also set a iron pot off - rusty bits in water, to add to another dye bath to hopefully gain a darker colour. I haven't got a week to wait for the iron pot but hopefully a few days may have some effect - this will be added to the husks that I have soaking in a bucket as apparently that increases the strength of colour too - just good fun really!

The raw state - as collected.

Washed nuts.

The dye bath .....

.....darkening ....

Autumnal colours from the walnut dye.