#my roommate does cook though and probably won't be thrilled im taking up half the stove for a day or more...

[milkweedman]

Mordanted and now dyeing. This is the red onion skin dyes + an old bottle of yellow onion skin, after I got nervous about how little color the dyebaths had (this is one of two pots, same stuff in both). It's... interesting ? Not a color I particularly like so far, altho it's pretty rare that the initial "just dumped dye onto the wool" preview is the actual color you'll get, at least in my experience (not that it usually changes drastically, but it does change and unpredictably so).

I think my guess about the mold weakening the dye was definitely right--I was kinda shocked how little color I got for the amount of dye I put in. Really sad about that, that was well over a years collection of red onion skins, and even after I noticed the mold I still couldn't use it for another several weeks because I just didn't have any time while moving.

Anyway, that was all of my onion based dye. The avocado doesn't seem to have any mold--I cant remember if it was always fine or if it's just gone ? Hopefully the former. I also have way less of it, so I don't think I can actually dye the whole fleece in one go. Maybe though, we'll see.

mordanting the first batch of washed shetland with alum--this is like my second time ever using alum bc you cant make it and i'm terminally poor, but the rya lambswool i dyed yellow with it ... last year ? last month ? some time in the past, idk, turned out really bright and vibrant so i wanted to try it again. i did get enough alum to do the other batch with it as well, altho i also have copper so i might do that instead. using maybe 13ish percent wof alum, with a little cream of tartar as well bc i finally got that for once too.