Natural Dyeing with Apple Twigs

I couple of days ago I dyed handspun BFL with apple twigs. Before Christmas my daughter collected and cut up half a bucket of apple twigs for me. When I came to look at them I was a bit concerned as they were showing some signs of mould but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and left them to soak for three days. I then drained the water off and using about half of the twigs (more would have been to much for my pot) put them into my dye pot and covered with water and boiled for about at hour and a half. I used a sieve to remove the twigs and debris and topped up with enough water for 100 gr of wool in two separate hanks. 50 gm had been mordanted in alum and the other 50gm had not been mordanted. I brought to the boil and simmered for about one hour. I then removed both hanks and added half a teaspoon of iron (mixed with warm water) to the dye bath and returned the unmordanted hank to the pot for about 5 mins.









As you can see the contrast is very clear between the alum and the iron. It is the first time I have used iron so I was very interested to see the difference.