[Bionic]

I have just finished the onion skin dyeing.  The yarn on the left is from the first dye bath and the other from the exhaust bath.
I have been collecting the skins for a few months and they were a mix of red and white skins which I boiled up first and then strained to get rid of any bits of skin before using the mixture to dye with.
Both skeins were both mordunted with 8% alum and 6% cream of tartar.
Sally

[HappyHippy]

They look brill Sally  What are you going to make with them ?

[SallyintNorth]

Very nice 

Is this yarn you have spun yourself?

[Bionic]

Unfortunately I didn't spin this myself. Gosh would I be pleased with myself if I could spin that evenly.
I bought the undyed skeins at Wonderwool Wales. It was a special offer and cost me £10 for 1,000 grams so I was well chuffed.  It was cheap enough for me to be able to experiment.
 
Karen, I have started knitting  a fairisle tank top from last months Simply Knitting magazine. Its supposed to be for a man but that doesn't matter.  I will change it about, colour wise, as I haven't dyed enough of any one colour to make up the whole of the body. I suspect it will look a bit like Josephs coat of many colours when I am finished. 

[Fleecewife]

Hi Bionic - they're lovely and look very satisfying hanging there.  What weight of skins to wool did you use?  My bag of skins is nearly full but will only dye a small amount I think.   

[Bionic]

Fleecewife,
My book said 200% of skins to yarn. I would never have collected that much in 100 years.  Having looked at some u-tube videos I realised other people are using much less. 
I have a big, cheap, preserving pan that probably takes about 12 litres of liquid. The onion skins filled it to just under half way and then I just added water and boiled away. I then let it cool because I wasn't ready to use it but when I did use it I didn't use all of the dye lot. I did the dyeing in a 9 litre pan (another cheapie) and 200grams of wool and dye came up to just over half way.  When I did the second batch I did add some more of my dye liquid to it but I still have some dye left that I haven't used.
 
I hope I haven't made this sound more confusing than it was but the upshot of it is that I don't think you need as many onion skins as the books would indicate.  You can see that I got a nice strong colour.
 
Sally

[Fleecewife]

Thanks Sally - that's encouraging, although I still have a way to go.  I'm about to crop my shallots so maybe there will be more skins there.  I still have my jumper to finish - I'm at the yoke - then the sparkley shawl, then I can think about how best to use onion-dyed yarn  .   I think I have been overwhelmed by seeing my Japanese friend's onion jumper - it's amazing, lots of yellow shades, with a subtle pattern of onions all over.  I feel like such a country bumpkin when I see her and her amazing spinning, dyeing and knitting     She made a jumper with an all-over pattern of many breeds of sheep with, yes, you've guessed it - every sheep breed was knitted in its own wool.  Utterly unique, completely amazing and I have no chance in this life of producing anything even one hundredth as clever.  I do have my own sheep though which she can't 

[SallyintNorth]

Wow, FW, those jumpers sound amazing! 

I don't suppose you have any pictures... 

[Fleecewife]

Not of the sheepy one - she wore it at the Royal Highland Show one year.  I did have a pic of the onion one  ..... ......   ....no, no idea where that is now although I do tend to hang onto things like that.  She may have a website - I'll google and see (bound to be in Japanese  )

[SallyintNorth]

She wouldn't have them as projects in Ravelry, would she?

[Fleecewife]

Hi Sally. Couldn't find her by googling - there is someone with the same name who is a researcher so lots of articles but not her, and I found her husband but no link to her.
 
I'll pm you her name (not fair to put it on here) and you could check on ravelry.  She has been living in England for the past few years but will be back in Japan now.

[Bionic]

Fleecewife,
If you do find any of the pics of your friends jumpers I would be interested too.  Mind you they sound far too complicated for me but I can still enjoy looking. 
Sally

[SallyintNorth]

So far neither of us have been able to track this clever lady down on the interweb, so we're in FW's hands in terms of turning up pics. 

[Fleecewife]

It's time I emailed her anyway     Don't hold your breath though............
 
I weighed my onion skin collection this morning--------------> 2 5/8 oz     It's taken me months to get to that 

[Welshcob]

FW, sounds like your Japanese friend has amazing crafty hands! I'd also love to see pics of these jumpers, especially the sheepy one  (typical of me, meat over veg)

In the internet grapevine I have heard of somebody who made a cushion with a sheep pattern (I think it was intarsia, but not sure) and I was thinking to adapt it myself, changing the colours of the sheep and knitting them in their own breed's wool. How I'd love that!
Of course clever me I was using somebody else's PC and didn't think to write down the link  Not much luck in trying to find it again with Google. I might just have to creat my own.

 

Not much time to knit or spin these days, but my mind is always keen to hoard ideas!