Last summer, as you may remember, I got super into natural dyeing. I dyed fabric with marigolds, oak gall, avocado skins, fig leaves & eucalyptus. I learned that you can use an iron bath to modify the dyed fabric and change the color dramatically. 2025 was all about experimentation and I had a lot of fun with the process. I also learned how important it is to follow all the steps to get the very best results.

This spring, I am continuing my experimentation and it’s even more exciting. (The best part of hobbies is that as you learn and get more comfortable, the hobby stretches with you.) So far this season, I have used eucalyptus, rosemary and lavender as my dye material. We have all three growing in abundance in our yard and it was fun to see the colors each produced originally (yellows, tans) and then the results after the fiber was modified with iron (greens, grays).

My iron modification method is the least scientific and most interesting part of the whole dyeing adventure. All of the technique books I reference mention that you can use a very specific amount of ferrous sulfate or “rusty nails soaked in vinegar” to modify your dyed fabric. Last summer, I soaked a rusty horseshoe we found in the yard (on the left above) in vinegar and then added some water to the mixture. As needed, I dipped pieces of fabric into the iron bath and watched them change color over the course of a few minutes.

The first week of May, I decided to try dyeing with fresh lavender. You can see some of my results above. The lavender results on their own are not that exciting — mostly I got a light yellow and tan. Things got interesting though when I accidentally left my wool yarn sample in my iron bath overnight. The result was a rich dark olive green. I loved it on the yarn and instantly my brain started whirling about future knit projects.

But then, I started thinking about existing knit projects. It’s currently Me Made May and I am deep into the challenge (that’s a peek above!) and have been wearing hand-sewn and hand-knit garments for the past 18 days. I am, of course, learning a lot about my personal style. One thing that I already knew is that I have so many white and cream tops. I really want to bring in more color.

After extremely little thought, I decided to try and dye my cream Nebula sweater. I figured the absolute worst thing that could happen is the sweater would fall apart in the dye bath. That would be sad, but hardly a crisis. The second worst thing that could happen was that the resulting color would be awful. I figured that wasn’t that big of a deal because I could just over-dye it with something else. And the upside? The upside was huge! If it worked, I would have a pretty, olive green top and I would have leveled-up my natural dye ability to real objects, not just fabric scraps.