No Pink

I was hoping that after several sessions of shimmering, the apple bark dye would saturate the wool and turn into pink as my book said.

No such luck. See the pretty muted pink swatch? This was what I was hoping for, and what I was supposed to get. See the wool next to it? It's just another sad pale tan! I don't think I made a mistake on the dye stuff - fiber ratio. I had 154g of bark, and I dyed 65g of wool -- considering that the book recommends 1:1 ratio, I was pretty conservative.

The lichen dye has been sitting for more than four months. No pink there either. It's supposed to take 120 days to develop the deep burgundy color. Mine is just sickly greenish brown. I just learned from one of the Japanese fiber blogs that I visit that I'm supposed to open the jar lid to let the air in. I didn't do that -- being afraid of the ammonia odor. Come to think of it, I'm supposed to shake the jar daily to incorporate the oxygen into the dye, so it only makes sense to let the supply of oxygen in. So I've been braving the smell to open the jar every day, but no luck.

OK -- three failures (Black-eyed Susans, apple bark and lichens) out of six (dandelions, turmeric and hibiscus tea were successful) isn't that bad. As much as it's been discouraging and disappointing.

Oh, by the way -- Mitch says "Hi Grandma!" to his Grandma Eunice. What a goofball!