walnut and oak leaves

An incredibly stinky brew of walnut and oak leaves became my dye concoction this weekend. The mixture had soaked in an iron pot on our patio for about six months and was ripe in every sense of the word. Besides the indigo vats, this was my first dye experiment in a long time, and I had quite a few ideas I wanted to try. Loose pieces of wool and linen went into the pot, so did two bundles with dried oak leaves, and beech twigs clamped between linen squares and metal plates...

I was imagining the twigs acting as resists, while still letting the dye seep through to the surrounding cloth. It worked ok, but not quite as distinct as I imagined. The linen did not take the walnut dye as well as I had hoped. In hind sight I think I tried to do a bit too much. There was not much room to move around in the pot and the clamps holding the twigs in place were rusty, therefor leaving some rust smudges here and there. I also think I opened the bundles too soon (just could not help myself). I still had a great fun messing around with the dye pot - glad to be back in the thick of it, literally.