Walnuts

I began the walnut dye a few days ago. I steeped the hulls three days, until it was a whimpy coffee color. I then strained the mixture and peeled off the hulls and boiled them for 2 hours. The dye vat took on a murky coffee color, or deep roasted bone beef stock. This is the silk right after I turned it. It has been in 5 minutes.

In the meantime, I boiled five yards of silk with an alum mordant solution. I am told this will be more mahogany. Dying looks much easier on the page that it is in reality. I love this part of the research because I find so many things are NOT things you can simply follow the instructions on and have it come out perfect each time. I am turning the cloth every fifteen minutes as it boils away in the vat. It is actually at a very slow simmer and I keep a polyester net bag full of hulls in there to deepen the color.

In the meantime, it is lampwork, stewing the dried and recently fermented cochineal to see if it can do red or once fermented always mulberry, cutting out the plain silk kirtle and sewing up the pink kirtle. I have learned my french seams and I believe good material helps you learn. Silk needs the added seams. It prevents it from raveling. Now, the neckline is a problem I am not quite sure what to do. The various instructions seem at odds and it is hard to french. So, I do it my way. Go me. This is the kirtle or under dress.

Oh! It has been an hour.
How about a picture on our progress with that dye vat? It is darker, but not nearly as much as I wanted. I am disappointed. Why isn't it super brown?? This is silk! It should be dying a very dark color. It isn't bad though, is it? This is probably the final color and it isn't awful by any means.

I will go back to pinning the pink kirtle.