At the beginning of this year I decided I would try my hand at dyeing, especially natural dyeing, as I've always been interested in it and wanted to give it a go.  So this week I got a good sized pot, a couple of skeins of white wool that I had spun up several months ago, did some research, and tested my luck.

For the first batch I decided to try out stinging nettle.  I did not measure how much because for this first round I just wanted to have some fun and see if it would actually work.  

The only regret I have is that I didn't use cheese cloth to keep the leaves in a confined place.  I thought by making it so that the leaves were free floating around that it would be easier to get the colours to work their magic, and while that may have helped, it was almost certainly not worth the hassle of all of the little itty bitty leaf chunks that appear to be forever entangled in this yarn.

That being said, it definitely made for some beautiful pictures and it was fun to look like I was making some of witchy and nefarious concoction on my stove top.  Life just gets so busy and stressful, it's sometimes the simple pleasures, like saying "boil, boil, toil and trouble" over a cauldron of fiber, that makes all of the weight of the day ease off.  

Another thing I learned during this process is that no matter how well the colour looks like it's taking in the pot, it's always good to hold it up and let the water drain out of a section to see what it really looks like.  There were several times where I thought it was the colour I wanted, only to find out there was barely any colour there at all.

Next pot, same mistake of not using cheesecloth, but useful for pretty pictures.

These are elderberries!  

The darkness that the elderberries gave to the water were especially deceptive in making my think that colours were taking more quickly than they were.  However, it did provide a nice reprieve as the stinging nettle ended up making my home smell like a hamster cage, and the elderberries had a lovely floral scent to them that did its best to mask the hamster-ness.  

For the dyeing process itself I put the water on a medium heat for both and let them sit on heat for about 4 hours, then left both skeins in the water overnight.  

As you can see, the stinging nettle really clings onto the fibers, but I'm not particularly upset as it was my own fault and they did produce a beautiful colour.

The elderberries created this lovely dusty rose colour, and were significantly easier to shake off than the stinging nettle.

Definitely be expecting more posts like this, as I had heaps of fun and learned a lot from this first round.  I am also planning on trying some non-natural dyes in the future as well -- the natural dyes were just the most enticing to start out with.

Stay sweet, stay crafty, and stay tuned!