One of the things that motivates me the most as a natural Dyer, is simply curiosity. Curiosity of what colors are around us, is it in the tree leaves, are they in the nuts, are they in the roots, in the wood, where are they?
I had reached out to the women of the Knitting Guild To see if anyone had a black walnut tree on their property. A good friend of mine had replied, she said that she had An old walnut tree in her yard. Once we got to our house We talked a little bit and she showed us where the tree was. Turns out that it was actually a pecan tree, but however there was a black walnut tree right next to her property. So it was an easy mistake.. So my friend Julia and I spit and I spent about an hour or so picking up as many small pecan seed pots as we could we ended up collecting about 4 pounds altogether of these all together of these green oblong shaped football like Pods. They were flushy green on the outside on the outside just like the black walnut husk and yet they were oblong and reminded me of one of those Tornadè potatoes, that you see in fancy restaurants.
Once we got them back to the house, we cleaned them up and scraped all the dirt off.. I went ahead and filled up the dye pot of full of water and then put in all the pecans that equal out to be about 4 pounds. I allowed the pecans to sit in the water for 1 day with heating the water and then letting it rest. On and off monitoring it so that the color would retract, but also being efficient about it to not waste propane. On the 2nd day we started to add the yarn.. For the 1st round I used all sock yarn which was 438 yd, 100% super wash merino. It was a lot of fun watching the yarn color transition from a really pretty blush rose all the way up to a reddish Brown, almost like a burnt Sienna. Absolutely beautiful and then I allowed that to sit overnight, we need to see what the strength actually can get to. And so the next day resulted in that true Burt Sienna color caught my was just beautiful, It truly looked like the pecan nut meat. Then when I went to add in the 2nd round of dyed yarn it of course turned out to be a lighter brown color. Love every shade that is put off for sure.
Till next year pecans, I will find loads of you next year!