Onion Skin Dyeing

Yesterday, in addition to laundry and cutting grass I did some onion skin dying for a vintage rug I'm working on.  The auction house named it Glazer Antique Hearts, thus the name I've given it.

I've already hooked the top two hearts and used what I had but the colors just aren't the same.  I'll use the newly dyed wool to hook the heart on bottom right first and probably replace some wool on the ones already hooked...will see.

Anyway, I used about 3 cups of both yellow and red squished skins then placed them in a mesh bag.  Three mesh bags for $1 at the Dollar store.

Last onion skin dying was unimpressive as I used 2 cups skins with 1 yard total of fabric.  This time there were 3 cups onion skins with a tad over half yard of varying shades of white... can ya say '50 shades of white'?  Uh, a play on the book and movie "50 Shades of Grey". 

Dear friend Lauren (Rugs and Pugs) always keeps me in check.  Today she asked me how long I simmered the onions and if I kept the bag 
in the pot of wool when doing so.  This was my reply.....

"I simmered about half an hour or so and with 2 cups of onion skins.  When the color was absorbed didn’t think it was dark enough so turned off the stove, removed the wool and went to the grocery store.  Noticed some of the color was concentrated where the bag of onion skins sat.

When I came back I added the 3^rd cup of onions to the bag and turned on the water without wool but with the onion skins to leech out more color.  When the color darkened to  my satisfaction removed the bag of onion skins and put the wool back in the pot to absorb more color.  Not sure how long it simmered by then but was happy with the color and color almost gone so glugged with white vinegar."

This rug won't be done in time for Cape May, which is fine with me as it  gives me something to work on until Kris gets to me with my class project.  Two weeks from today I'll be scurrying around anxious to drive to the Cape May Lewes Ferry toward New Jersey shore.

Saundra

Plans, Time and Priorities Updated

'Plans' for today's blog post was going to be about doing onion skin dying.    When going to the grocery store I'd gather loose onion skins from the bin and put them in baggies plus save my own when using onions in recipes.  

But with other more pressing 'priorities' that plan went by the way side.   Am trying to downsize to rid items from my sewing room related to crafts I no longer do.  

Today was busy taking photos of various items to list on eBay tomorrow...such as more flour/seed feed sacks and quilt books.  There were some listed last week which are closing tomorrow.

While checking my book shelves for more Quilt Patterns I found this CHERI  SAFFIOTE hard back quilt book.  HERE is the link to the listing on eBay.

Instead of taking photos to list on eBay, what I'd really like to do is get busy hooking my new rug project.  But tomorrow a few eBay listings end which will need to be packaged for shipping.  Now I need to list those new items which also takes 'time'.

This Little Quilts pattern book is also listed on eBay.

 

When making primitive dolls I aspired to make small quilts for dolls, decoration, etc.  In retrospect think that would have been a much wiser choice than starting a huge STAR QUILT which still isn't finished after all these years.

That "S" word is coming my way and I'm not happy about that.  Yes, it is beautiful but requires more 'time' from me to shovel and keep steps clean so I don't slip.

Gonna go pull a few loops on my new project and who knows when that onion skin dyeing will eventually get done.

Hope everyone is warm and tucked in.

Saundra

Avocado Pit and Onion Skin Dying Results

Last time I leached out color from the avocado pits I did it over several days.  I'd bring the quartered pits and skins to a boil and then turn the pot off but let the pot remain on the burner at room temperature.  This went on for a few days to be sure that I got a lot of color.  This time I didn't do that ~ I brought the pits to a boil then turn it to simmer until I was ready to dye.  I put both cups in the pot of water with the wool but saw no change in color hardly.  So, I put all the pits and skins in the pot of water in the hopes to get more color.

And with the onion skin juice I'd retrieved from my freezer, put the two cups in the other pot of wool.  Again, perhaps I had too much wool and while this pot was producing more color than the avocado pits, it still wasn't dark enough for my liking.  So, decided to use the onion skins I'd been collecting and go for broke.

These onion skins I just saved from cooking.  But the first time I did the onion skin dying I asked if I could clean out the onion bin at the local store and they were happy to have a free cleaner-upper and I went home with a couple shopping bags full of all kinds of onion skins for free.

Here is a picture of the results.  The top row of wool is what I achieved from my dye project of several months ago using avocado pits and using alum as the mordant.  The bottom row of wool is what occurred from this project.  The first piece of wool on the first and second row is the very same wool; top was from previous dye job and the bottom row is yesterday's dye job.

The following picture shows the top row using avocado dye and the bottom row is using onion skins.  The checked piece of wool on the top row is the very same wool as the one below it and you can see the difference in color.  Same thing for wool #2 on bottom row and the one above; ditto with the orange plaid wool next to last.



You can see the onion skins do a great job of dying and I shall not bother saving avocado pits any longer as it isn't worth the trouble.  However, it was fun to experiment.

Avocado and Onion Skin Dying

A few months ago I experimented with avocado dying and used alum as the mordant.  That is what was recommended in the information I'd read.  This time I'm going to use vinegar to set the color instead of alum and see what, if any difference there is.  And recently on Rughookers Yahoo group there was some chatter and questions about onion skin dying.  So I thought I'd do another experiment and post this link on Rughookers for interested readers to check out.

Of course today's avocado experiment has the variable on how strong the liquid was that I used before and how much wool for the uptake of the color.  However, it is always nice to have different values of the same color so it will be fun to do the dyeing again.

I've gathered a sampling of reclaimed wool, wool that needs a little color boost and some of the same wool previously used in the other avocado dye project for comparison.

Here is some wool that will be used for the avocado dye pot. Bits and pieces of this and that and wanted to see how it might tone down the bright yellow.  The 4th piece from the left is just like what I used for the avocado before.

This is wool that will go in the onion skin dye pot.  Since the dyes look sorta similar in color inside the measuring cup, thought it might be fun to see the difference in the results from like pieces of wool.

This picture blow shows the avocado liquid on the left, which was achieved by cooking a collection of avocado seeds (with skins) which I halved or quartered in a pot of water.  On the right is some onion skin liquid that I pulled out of my freezer from juice saved from a previous simmering of skins which I put in a nylon stocking.

These are 2 cup measuring cups and will start out using just one cup until I see the results and will add more to each pot as I see fit.  I will post a picture of the results when the dying is done.