Just a little experimenting that happened this week! With a single skein on a single day, tucked/snuck in between work and rehearsals and classes and making dinner. This skein is the first one back from the mill (more about all of that later, when the rest arrives!), a test of sorts, of my shetland wool blended with a friend's mohair, and a little bit of alpaca added too. It's incredibly soft....and strong. And I couldn't help but get right to playing with it - this week, with some of the elderberries buried deep in my freezer. It's about that time of year - freezer clean out is coming soon - and I realized that I had frozen more elderberries than I really needed (all the tinctures and syrups I made in the fall are still going strong in March). But that's a surplus I can absolutely deal with - in the dye pot. I used Alum as a mordant, without the cream of tartar, and left it to soak in the pot overnight. I love the rich color that resulted, though I think it will fade a bit to more of a gray with purple highlights and I'm excited about that too. Oh, it's going to be a fun season ahead with natural dye, I can already tell!
