Onion Skins 3 Ways

The ivy berry bath didn't give me the color I was looking for, and so for my second attempt I thought I'd try something easier.

A skein form the first bath.

Onion skins....what a beautiful color!  I managed to get three different baths and 5 skeins out of only 200 grams of onion skins.

Recipe for the first bath
200g hand spun Shetland and BFL mordanted with alum
200g onions skins
I brought the onion skins to a low simmer and cooked them for about an hour.  After pouring off the dye bath there seemed to bee enough color left in the skins for a second bath so I refilled another container with water, placed the used onion skins in that new bath and set it aside for later.
I let the original bath cool and then placed the two skeins in the bath and brought it back to a very low simmer.  I let this bath simmer for about two hours.

For the second and third baths, I experimented.  I made a second dye bath with the used onion skins.  I then mixed half of that second bath with the exhausted bath from the first dying session and reserved the other half for the third bath.  I know, it's confusing, but I did end up with two skeins dyed a lovely shade of mustard.

The third bath was a combination of the exhaust bath from a batch of St. Johns wort flowers, and the second half of the second onion skin bath.

St. John's wort flowers floating in a dye bath.

 Are you completely lost yet?  For this I used an un-mordanted skein of Shetland hand spun.  It came out a yellowy peach.  I'm really pleased to have gotten so much color out of such a small bag of onion skins.  Pictures to come.....