Walnuts are not just for eating
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be given some green walnuts. I had never used walnuts for dyeing before. It was a bit of a puzzle to me as to what part of the walnuts I should use for dyeing. Should I use them whole or chop them up.? I checked in Jenny Deans book Wild Colour and realised I should use the whole green walnut . So I just randomly chopped the green casing away from the walnuts shell and placed the chopped up mixture in the dye pot. I did not remove the nuts. After a short time of simmering the solution was a delicious brown colour. I kept it simple and only dyed wool fibres, silk thread and a small piece of silk fabric. The wool fibre , which was Wensleydale long wool , had been mordanted with Alum. The wool dyed brilliantly with the…