Dyeing With Black Walnuts

I’m trying to get some projects wrapped up before leaving on our train trip next week. I’ve been dyeing some yarn with black walnut. In the first photo, on the right, is how it looks straight out of the pot and on the left is after it’s been rinsed. The skein on the right is from my friend Mark Maier's sheep, and the rinsed skein is some rug wool I purchased quite a while ago.

These are both rinsed skeins. Considering how dark the skeins were before rinsing, they lost a considerable amount of color.

 The dye bath was made from husks that had already turned black, and the liquid was very dark. I simmered the husks for a while and then let it sit for a couple days before straining the solids from the liquid.

Yesterday, I heated the liquid and then added hot washed wool yarn and simmered it for a while. Then I let it soak overnight and rinsed and dried it today.

I don't have enough time right now to do any more dyeing, even though there is a lot of color still left in the pot. Doing a gradation experiment or trying some different mordants would have been interesting. I'm wondering if adding a mordant such as alum would have made the yarn darker.

Perhaps next year I will do some experimenting with it again. I read that a darker dye can be obtained from the green husks or the the nuts without the husks.