I was really surpirsed that these samples held their color pretty well! They all lightened up a bit, but more of them still look yellow....I still think the plain vinegar did the best job, followed by the tin/steel can. Tune in next time for the next Dyeing for Lazies!!

 I've been wanting to natural dye, but didn't want to order a whole bunch of stuff to do it. I also feel, after google searching for DAYS like there should be a WHOLE TON more experiments going on.

What's with this alum thing? Seriously. I mean, everything has gotta have alum in it. Like it's the only mordant, ever. Don't "but it works" me! Everyone seems to say "oh yeah, it's at the grocery store" too. Newsflash! No it isn't. Not in my town at least. Not by the pickling supplies, not in the drug store, not at the garden supply store. NOT THERE. So I took some of my washed alpaca and tried out some of these other mordants that seem to be out there and easily accessible!

I soaked about a quarter ounce of safflower in water. It's in that big jug in the back there. I also tried out a bunch of different mordanting treatments to see what would make it stick best. I read after starting this that safflower doesn't work on wool at all, so WE SHALL SEE WHAT HAPPENS!

So, from left to right in the picture
1 - Water soaked only
This is my control group! Yay!
2 - Copperas 
(from a bottle of leaf greener on my garden shelf)
3 - A piece of tin can in vinegar
I know, they are really steel cans, but many steel cans are tin-plated, so still tin..(or that's the working theory here)
4 - bath salts!
 has some baking soda, salt, essential oils, epsom salts. Yay!
5 - vinegar. Just vinegar.
6 - Copper pan (in back) (this didn't pan out -- read below)
7. Raisins soaked in water. The theory here is that raisins have tannins. Which are a mordant (?!?)
8. Aluminum foil in vinegar -- I've seen in several pages that this works, but no pics to prove it!!!
9. Tea (also in back)-- Also has tannins, and is a substantive dye in itself. But does it help other dyestuff stick?
 

I simmered the copperas with cream of tartar for about 30 min in a stainless steel pan, and meant to do that with the rest, but yeah, I burned the next batch so I decided to use the cold soak method.

REMEMBER FOLKS, this is dyeing for LAZIES!

After about 1.5 days cold soaking with equal amount of the dyebath (10g of fiber for each batch)
I squeezed out the fiber and rinsed it in tepid water.

Top Row L to R: 

1. Plain water. Turned out almost best. Weird. 
   
2. Copperas - Definitely looks "sad" as all the pages say
3. Tin Can in Vinegar -- seems lighter than some others, but more even

Middle Row L to R
4. Bath salts -- This one was the worst. I think it repelled all the dye
5. Just Vinegar! I think this one wins round 1.
6 -- the copper pan wasn't here. I was already scared away from simmering them for now... so I just spread out the tea fiber more

Bottom Row:
7. Raisins -- better than expected? They certainly colored the water and changed how the yellow looks
8. Aluminum Foil in vinegar -- I liked this one too witholding final judgement until after the light test
9. Tea -- Now I expected this to dye from the tea anyway, and I think there is something to this, because it was definitely tinged yellow. Perhaps I shall do a "tea only" sample to compare

IN OUR NEXT EXCITING EPISODE OF DYEING FOR LAZIES---

I let the samples dry in the sun, covering a portion with tin foil to see if any of them are lightfast!

 I made some rolags with 50% Satin Angora and 50% alpaca -- Then I spun it up and kool aid dyed it, and plied it together. I used my natural black fiber and it made everything look just a little....spooooky.

I've been doing quite a bit of fiber stuff lately, but I'll just break this up into several posts.

I hand spindled some bulky yarns from my black buck and white doe -- I kool aid dyed the white and got this lovely cranberry shade. Whee!

As my first foray into creating things out of angora fiber, I made a few cuddly bear hats. To make this I blended about 3 oz of the light chocolate fiber from my chocolate agouti juniors with some bluefaced lecester wool in an 80/20 mix.

I then handspun a lumpy woolen yarn on my drop spindle and plied it, and knitted a basic hat on my circular loom. There are some youtube tutorials that showed me how to make the ears.

For a first project, as someone who has not knitted a thing since 4th grade, I'll consider it a success! I made two of these as gifts -- one for my nephew and another for a coworker.