Fall Harvest

First, a rainbow picture showing some leaves turning yellow - fall is very much here:

Still, yesterday was nice enough that I got to spin out on the porch for a bit.

Today was cooler and cloudy, raining now. Yesterday I noticed that the upper parts of the potato plants had died off. I decided that today was as good a day as any for the harvest - don't want to wait until the ground is frozen! This year's crop:



The other kind of harvest that's been absorbing me is the dye garden:


Little bits of white fleece, alum mordanted, dyed with onion, marigold, coreopsis, tansy and rudbeckia (one with both marigold and rudbeckia). I'm carding them up and I'm going to spin them together, Deb Menz style.

Hopi red amaranth on silk (left), superwash sock yarn and wool, tin mordant:

 All the lovely red stays in the dye water, so sad. Even the sock yarn became more yellow when fully dry.

 Marigold plus indigo on wool, one ply started grey, the other two white.

The most exciting dye of the year is purple basil. I followed Rita Buchanan's advice to leave it for a day or two in the dye pot, then leave it be another few days before rinsing. Same fibers as the amaranth pot, also tin mordant. For both, I dyed the wool and silk first, then the sock yarn after.

 We got this sort of color from black hollyhocks once, but haven't managed to get enough flowers any time since! I think basil is the way to go.