About a week and a half ago I picked up around 3 plastic shopping bags of walnuts, planning to use the hulls for dyeing some clothes. When I went to get them to crack the hulls off today imagine my surprise when I found the hulls had rotted into a black slop that was about the nastiest mess you most ever did see. It saved me from hammering on the things to get the hulls off and looks like it will even turn coal a shade or two darker. Besides being mostly a pulp the stuff had small maggot like critters in it. Since this stuff is a rotting organic matter, if I want to save the resulting dye water to use again later, is there anything I can add to it to keep it from spoiling or forming mold? I'm still overjoyed 10 hours later that I didn't get a tickle in my nose and scratched it without thinking while working with that stuff. ::
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Walnut hull dye
- Thread starter doverdog
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I would not use that particular batch SF. It is already past help.
I try to get them when they are just turniong black, or as they hit the ground from the tree. You can save them for some time that way if you keep them dry.
Do not hull them, it is not necessary. Tie the whole nuts up in a square of cloth and boil them in a large container, something like a 5 gal can. The water will get dark in proporton to the ammount of nuts you use. After about a half hour you will have all of the color you are going to get. Remove the sack of nuts. Hopefully, you will not have a lot of residue in the water, only color.
Keep the square of cloth. It will make a dandy well dyed kerchief.
Pur in some salt, or a little vinegar to set the color in the fabric.
If you are hot dying you are ready to go. Dump in the items and let them soak for a few minutes, then hang them to dry. They will shrink in the hot water.
If you are cold dying, let the mix cool and soak the fabric for longer periods, up to a week, to set the colors. The dye will rot and grow mold. Not much you can do about that.
This dye gets weak as you use it. The first garmet may be real dark, the next less dark, etc., until you get just a dirty gray shade.
Walnut is not a color fast dye and will fade quickly. Wash it no more than necessary (once a season?). I have seen the entire color disipear in one wash with modern detirgents in a machiene.
Being a dyed in the wool PC fanatic, I prefer ritberries. Ritberries in the pearl grey shade is a dead ringer for well washed walnut dyed lenin. A blend of kaki and pearl grey is an excellent hue that shouts of pioneers in the forest.
Most of that really good walnut color you see at the better historic sites, on the nationally known reenactors, is actually ritberries!
Stay away from the deadly brown ritberries. They leave a red tinge in the garmet, almost pink to purple, that shouts of fake color and makes all other re-enactors run away in fear.
An army blanket dyed in scarlet ritberries turns a wonderful burgandy color, that was very popular in days of old.
:thumbsup:
I try to get them when they are just turniong black, or as they hit the ground from the tree. You can save them for some time that way if you keep them dry.
Do not hull them, it is not necessary. Tie the whole nuts up in a square of cloth and boil them in a large container, something like a 5 gal can. The water will get dark in proporton to the ammount of nuts you use. After about a half hour you will have all of the color you are going to get. Remove the sack of nuts. Hopefully, you will not have a lot of residue in the water, only color.
Keep the square of cloth. It will make a dandy well dyed kerchief.
Pur in some salt, or a little vinegar to set the color in the fabric.
If you are hot dying you are ready to go. Dump in the items and let them soak for a few minutes, then hang them to dry. They will shrink in the hot water.
If you are cold dying, let the mix cool and soak the fabric for longer periods, up to a week, to set the colors. The dye will rot and grow mold. Not much you can do about that.
This dye gets weak as you use it. The first garmet may be real dark, the next less dark, etc., until you get just a dirty gray shade.
Walnut is not a color fast dye and will fade quickly. Wash it no more than necessary (once a season?). I have seen the entire color disipear in one wash with modern detirgents in a machiene.
Being a dyed in the wool PC fanatic, I prefer ritberries. Ritberries in the pearl grey shade is a dead ringer for well washed walnut dyed lenin. A blend of kaki and pearl grey is an excellent hue that shouts of pioneers in the forest.
Most of that really good walnut color you see at the better historic sites, on the nationally known reenactors, is actually ritberries!
Stay away from the deadly brown ritberries. They leave a red tinge in the garmet, almost pink to purple, that shouts of fake color and makes all other re-enactors run away in fear.
An army blanket dyed in scarlet ritberries turns a wonderful burgandy color, that was very popular in days of old.
:thumbsup:
Guest
Just as ghost states you don
Ritberries. Rit Dye. They grow in grocery store "housewares" isles and fabric shops. Used to dye pure, white cotton colors as shown on box. Any other material or already shaded fabric is a manure shoot.
What you wanted:
What you ended up with:
My worst result was a mix of 50:50 "Black & Navy Blue that I wanted for tinting the canopy of a model aircraft. Came out Easter Egg Pink. :curse: Ended up tossing that $25 canopy and trying again with "Royal Blue" that came out a nice amber brown??? :what:
RussB
45 Cal.
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- Feb 25, 2004
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Stumpkiller......
"Ritberries. Rit Dye. They grow in grocery store "housewares" isles and fabric shops. Used to dye pure, white cotton colors as shown on box".
It was 07:30 in the morning when you wrote that! You well know that ritberries grow on shelves, not isles! :crackup:
You must drive your other half.....guess we won't go there.
Russ
"Ritberries. Rit Dye. They grow in grocery store "housewares" isles and fabric shops. Used to dye pure, white cotton colors as shown on box".
It was 07:30 in the morning when you wrote that! You well know that ritberries grow on shelves, not isles! :crackup:
You must drive your other half.....guess we won't go there.
Russ
