a red cabbage over-dye

 The little grocery store down the road from me had a sale on red cabbage last week.  Naturally, I picked some up to do a little dyeing.

 

Back in December I had dyed a couple of lengths of muslin using onion skins.  One I gave away for Christmas, but I kept the one on the right.  It seemed a prime candidate for some over-dyeing. I chopped my red cabbage and simmered it in the crockpot (I have a designated one just for dyeing - yay for garage sale finds!) until the leaves lost most of their color.  I then strained the leaves and tossed them in the compost and added my pre-mordanted wool and cotton to the dye bath along with a splash of ammonia.  And yes, it stinks.  A lot.  But the ammonia helps the color set.

 

My new onion and cabbage scarf is a pretty mix of olive and pale robin's egg blue.  Red cabbage dye often shifts towards grey on wool but I've found it less so on cotton.  I have some cotton duck I dyed last year that has still retained the look of chambray denim.  The thing with natural dyes is that even when they age and shift in color, they're still lovely.

Now I just need to roll the hem and I'm ready to wear some new color around my neck.

What have you made for yourself lately?