Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Tulip Sun Dye

I started a sun dye jar on July 1 with a container of pink tulip petals that I gathered earlier this summer (don't worry, I didn't go pick my neighbors' flowers, I collected petals that had already fallen on the ground from a park with thousands of flowers so that I could get enough). They were in my freezer for about two months while I worked on other things, but now they've been soaking for 1 1/2 weeks in a solution of 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol and 8 cups water. The jar is on my sunniest windowsill (inside, because from my apartment on the 20th floor there isn't a balcony or safe way to hang these on the outside of the window). This is what the jar looked like earlier this afternoon:


After the picture above, I strained out the remaining mushy petal scraps and added the yarn to the jar. I'm testing two yarns: 100% cotton (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton) and 100% wool (Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool).

Here is the jar after the yarn was added:



And here is the soggy petal mess that came out of the jar (lovely, right? smelled great too...):


I'm going to let the sun dye jar + yarn sit in the sunny window until the end of August. I'll update then with pictures of the results!

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