To have colorful clothing.

I’m a little on the strange side. See, (and this has nothing to do with writing) I decided to knit a blanket on my 42 hour bus trip. I wanted to knit it out of cotton. Problem is that cotton is about $2 for 2 ox and I need almost 40 oz (meaning $40). I don’t have the money for that.  So I got brilliant idea of dying it with red cabbage. My mom said that would make it be a giant indicator blanket, meaning that if I spilled soda on it, it’d turn green. So I tried to look it up to see if that is the case.

I never actually found out, but I discovered the world of natural dyes. Now, finding dying instructions are very hard. The best I can figure out, you want to make a tea out of the object you are using to make the dye, that will make a colored water, and then you soak your item in the liquid with some salt, vinegar or alum to get the dyes to stay.

So, that being said, here is a list of all the natural dyes. Reason why I am showing you is more of the fantasy side of things, instead of the science fiction side.

Dandelions make a pretty pale yellow dye. The roots make either brown or red.

And, I should probably mention that I pretty much failed at dying things. I got a pretty yellow dye from dandelion flowers, but it was really pale. (Pretty, but pale.) Then I tried lilac twigs and I got the same color as the dandelions (and forgot it was suppose to be yellow), tried red leaves and I got a yellow color that I didn’t even try. So so far, I’m good at dying things yellow. Not so good at any other color, which is terribly disappointing.  I do believe I am going to cheat on my knitting and dye it with regular, store bought dye.

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One brief moment of celebration for myself as a side note. Yesterday, I had my 2,000 blog visitor. *throws party* So, thanks to you all for reading, and for more importantly, coming back.