Dyeing With Acorns!

 Last week I happened onto a video about dyeing  with acorns.  I remembered seeing lots of tiny acorns under the live oak trees in the church parking lot SO the third time I went to the FamilySearch Center after that I remembered to bring a bag, a broom, and a dust pan.  I picked up half a bag of acorns, left them in the back of the truck and went in for my shift at the FSC.

When I got home later that day I brought our large dye pot into the kitchen from the garage then brought in the acorns in the bag.  I picked out a few of the sticks but poured everything else...acorns, leaves, and even a few bugs which grossed me out...into the pot and filled it with water. After turning the stove burner to its lowest heat I set the pan on the stove.  One bug had survived the bath and jumped out, ran across the stove top, and disappeared.  Ick! (and I really do mean ICK!!!!  I could not find i)t.  After the pot came to a simmer, I let it alone for an hour or so then shut it off leaving it to cool overnight.

The next morning, (with bug still missing) I put in a longish rope of Lonk sheep breed roving and brought the heat up to simmering again.  I had put the roving in a mesh bag to keep any acorn tilth from getting into the fiber.  It did work, in case you want to know, no smutty stuff in the fiber.  The fiber simmered for an hour then I shut off the burner and let cool overnight.

In the morning I could barely wait to see if we got a nice color.  WE DID!!

Here is the beautiful brown!  I just love it.  So much love that I decided to put in all the rest of the Lonk roving  and see what we could get at a second dyeing from the same pot.  Here it is:

You can see that this looks lighter brown, and it is still wet, so we shall see tomorrow. I will let it cool down overnight then rinse and set to dry.  Even if it is much lighter brown, I do love it.  I might try again next year...or if I pick up more acorns, I might try again this year with some of our Thetford Roving.  So pleased!  Pretty soon the natural dyeing experiments will come to the top of the list for carding on the drum carder and spinning...though I do have to say I need to get better at spinning first...you will be the first to know how that turns out.