Flagel Knitting Files

The weather is becoming rather fall-like here on the farm. The trees have moved from the mass of red, orange and yellow to brown. Today I was able to catch some bright color on the old milk house; the ivy on the south side was at its most vibrant red in the morning sun. With fall in the air it seemed appropriate to have the house smell like cooked/cooking onions all day. I had saved all the onion skins from this summer, both yellow and red amounting to about 1.75 ounces or just under 50 grams. It was an entire produce bag full. Below it is pictured with about 20 yards of white wool I had spun from my nephew´s sheep. Before I go any further a disclosure should be made about the equipment being used for dyeing. All the sources I have read about dyeing say the same thing about the vessel to use; it should be stainless steel and a pot you will not use again for cooking. Under nonpandemic times this would mean a quick trip to the thrift store, but we are living in different...

In the back of my head I have had for a very long time this idea of trying my luck at dyeing with some of the most common natural dyeing materials around. In fact I had hoped to take a dyeing class at the local Minneapolis Textile Center this year and that, of course, did not happen. Short of the class I decided to dive into it by reading a few books and blog posts and then just do it. The wine stain, the final product of the story worth telling , was my first attempt using scoured, spun, plied and mordanted white wool to get color. As first attempts go it turned out pretty well. Throughout the spring and summer I have been saving two composting products from the kitchen: onion skins and avocado skins and their seeds. According to the book I have one needs the same weight in these natural dye starters as the weight of the yarn to be dyed. As you can imagine that means a whole lot of onion skins. We are getting there. Avocados are much easier to get that weight but truth be...