Walnut hull dye

[Suze]

Hi all

I am part of a group that is doing a fiber thing a couple of weekends from now.

We will be doing "natural dying" with walnut hull "soup" (BLECH, the smell while it is cooking is NOT good)

I was sort of wandering if any of you all had used this for leather? (I;m pretty sure "somebody" has done this here)

any tips? I was figuring on bringing home a jug of "glop" from the dye pot. Maybe take some out before it got boiled. After it is boiled with fiber I know it will have mordant in it (alum and something else that I can't remember right off)

any hints? After all wouldn't want all that good "glop" to go to waste >grin<

[Art]

Hi Suze,

I've done this before and I used a big cast iron pot and was told this was the mordant. It makes a weaker dye than the commercial and spirit ones but I just kept dipping and rubbing till I got what I wanted. I can't remember how long I boiled them, but it was at least an hour. Kind of a light brown effect.

Art

Hi all

I am part of a group that is doing a fiber thing a couple of weekends from now.

We will be doing "natural dying" with walnut hull "soup" (BLECH, the smell while it is cooking is NOT good)

I was sort of wandering if any of you all had used this for leather? (I;m pretty sure "somebody" has done this here)

any tips? I was figuring on bringing home a jug of "glop" from the dye pot. Maybe take some out before it got boiled. After it is boiled with fiber I know it will have mordant in it (alum and something else that I can't remember right off)

any hints? After all wouldn't want all that good "glop" to go to waste >grin<

[Suze]

Well the glop has been "cooking/rotting" for the better part of a year.....

Last years walnuts in a big bucket outside. the ones at the bottom were already in water and the water is pretty black.

the mordant I was talking about is what is in the fabric that we will be dyeing. Don't know how that will affect it on leather.

You know it would help if I got some leather -- thnk?

[ChuckBurrows]

Others will tell you that you need iron for the mordant

1) but the high tannins in the nutshells act as their own mordant

2) adding or using iron to cook the mix in "deadens" the color to the gray end of the scale so for brown shades don't use iron..

For more of a brown than you can get with walnut on leather, try pecan shells and/or STRONG brewed dark rosst coffee......I've used and continue to use both coffee and walnut a lot...much less toxic than commercail dyes although you really don't want to drink the walnut

[Scott1952]

I use coffee or black tea for my brown shades. Not only is it Eco friendly, it makes the leather smell great!

[rookie]

Has anyone tried chewing tobacco?

[Ian]

Has anyone tried chewing tobacco?

I did, once, but it made my teeth brown

[rawhide1]

rookie

Since I use chewing tabacca (which I need to quit due to increase in price) I have used it to dye some of my rawhide strings. I've been told that a strong tea or coffee mix will get the same result. While it would be cheaper and healther it would be harder to chew!!

Mike