Here are some musings on some kitchen experiments.
Do not bother trying to use nutmeg for dyeing, it's too oily and doesn't do much anyway plus is difficult to wash out the bits. Tea and coffee are better for staining than dyeing. Turmeric takes very little work and is awesome! Oh and wool is best not dyed in hot water if it needs to sit for a time ( for obvious reasons that I didn't even think about ahead of time
it's still usable though)Here is a pic of the natural coloured white fleece.
Here is a pic of some of the experiments that worked. The white at the top of the pic is some sort of synthetic stuffing that came out of a stuffed dog toy, the yellow at the left side is the same material dyed with turmeric and salt. The next three were the sheep fleece from the first photo. Second from the left started out being tea dyed then I added some coffee to the mix and the colour was not dark enough to be interesting so I threw it in with some chili powder (still not very dark but an interesting colour I can use), the olive is a little bit of olive green #34 Dylon dye and a little bit of turmeric and salt for good measure, the far right is just turmeric and salt and takes very little time to get it this colour.
Now I need to find some more of that fleece to try some others.
Vicki
