Dyeing: the onion skin experiment - aka Pickled Sheep

So, the last couple of months I had collected onion skins.
Red and yellow.
Mine and the ones left in the crates in the supermarket.

Yesterday I set the experiment up:
3 hanks of woll-silk-bamboo sock yarn
mixed onion skins
water and vinegar
one large pot

One hank I untwisted and left ot loose, no strings attached.
One hand I left twisted
One hank I untwisted and tied with white cotton.

Then I soaked them in water and vinegar and went for my usual swimming session.
When I returned I changed the water, put the onion skins in, brought it to a simmer, threw the hanks in and left it alone for about an hour.



Came back, looked in amazement at the colour that had developped, turned the stove off and left it standing overnight.



Just now I took the hanks out of their bath, rinsed them and hung them to dry.

The loose skein:



The twisted skein:





The inside remained natural coloured, I might overdye it with just yellow onion skin to get a different effect. Too much white left for my taste.

The tie-dye skein:








Like this better than the twisted skein, though next time I will not double the length over and tie, but tie in the round.

A really interesting experiment! The three skeins are now hanging to dry, afterwards I will give them a gentle wash and work with them. Well, one will hit the shop, one will get another round in the dye bath and the tie-dye is going to be used to re-knit a pattern I want to publish soon - the shawlette you can see in one of my earlier posts.

And that all happened before coffee or breakfast!