So, we tried our hands at making butternut dye! I don't know how well it turned out. Should it have been darker? The picture on our instruction post looked darker, but this picture looked about like ours. We were kind of busy the day that we did it, so we may have rushed the process a bit, and maybe our shirt would have turned out darker/better if we'd left it in the dye bath for longer. We still have a bag of walnuts in their shells, so we may try again another time. However, it was still a fun and memorable activity, and the children were very pleased with their handiwork.
Anyway, here is the process we used. It's very simple, basically just crushing the shells, boiling them, letting them steep, and then adding vinegar. Maybe we should have crushed the shells smaller, so they were more powdery? We didn't have a nutcracker, so we banged our nuts with a hammer to crack them, then pulled out the nutmeat and banged the shells with the hammer some more. It was quite fun.
Butternut-dyed shirt
Seb playing soldier (bedroll, pack, musket with bayonet, ammunition pouch, and canteen). I like his stern face.
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