Found Magic

Last week our friends Sally and Earl visited from Colorado. While they were here, we harvested some English walnuts at a neighbor’s and then found some black walnuts at Sacajawea Park in Polson. I have been playing around with the idea of being a wool maven, and am hoping to do some dyeing of the wool we had spun this summer. Perhaps a sweater for Albert?

We processed the walnuts over the weekend and found that different walnuts give different colors. The larger fleshy black walnut husks produce a dark khaki green, their shells a lighter tone. The English walnut husks produce a much warmer soft brown; again the shells produce a lighter tone. In for a penny…I shelled a bunch of organic hazelnuts and boiled the shells for about six hours. It produces a very light pinkish-brown color. It will be interesting to see if it is colorfast.

I’ll post color swatches soon.