Onions in the Dyepot

It’s cold up here! We had such a nice long regular summer leading into an Indian summer that didn’t want to stop. I knew fall would be a millisecond and I was right. All weekend we gazed at white tipped trees that told us the mountain was getting ready to welcome skiers. Yesterday the snow clouds threatened here, but failed to deliver. This is the point where Sunday Supper becomes a hardy soup and salad affair. And I have the opportunity to do crossover posts.

Click to read the soup and salad post.

While my kitchen exuded fragrances of fresh baked bread and simmering onions the rest of the onions (their golden skins) were simmering just outside the door. In the spot where our future outdoor kitchen will preside my dye “studio” lives. I have been dyeing a lot this fall with mushrooms foraged from the mountain above us. But today I want to share a “whole plant” story. Over the summer I’ve been gathering the skins of all the onions we cook with. I was waiting for the tipping point–french onion soup. I cook down ten onions for create the caramelized onions that are the base of that soup. It also creates a nice pile of skins to add to my other cooking pot.  I’d been getting this pot ready with some natural mordants (tin lined pot, copper pipe sitting in water for a week, cooked down rhubarb leaves). While the onions simmered inside they simmered outside as well . I added the yarn and fiber as the color began to pull out from the skins. A skein of sock yarn, a few of lace weight mohair, 4oz of Polwarth fiber. All simmering softly so as not to felt any of the fibers. When I saw that the fibers had picked up quite a lot of the color and that the water was once again turning back to it’s beginning color I turned off the heat and let the “soup” sit over night. The merino sock yarn grabbed that color and held on. I had layered the onions all around it so that it would have a mottled look. Both the mohair and fiber took the color straight on giving each a golden hue.  The mohair will be part of a striped cowl paired with some mushroom dyed yarn from last month at the dyepot. Still deciding about the other two items, but I have an entire winter ahead with which to play with my ever growing pile of projects.

This post definitely falls into the 52 weeks of happy posts:)