Black (Walnuts) And Blue (Hubbard)

What I really need to do today is clear off horizontal surfaces because we have company coming for the weekend. What I'd really like to do today is start simmering a black walnut dyebath. We stopped at a friend's to pick up windfalls on our way home from vacation. But for the time being, those hulls can just steep in buckets.

I'm off to find the hatchet for splitting the first of the Hubbard squash grown by our friends in southern Iowa. This one task will clear a sizable amount of horizontal surface area in my house.

The other one will go into cool storage in the basement for a few weeks, along with the butternut and acorn squashes our friends sent along with the Hubbard, and the winter squashes that grew in our own garden.

I'm planning to sample using the stringy guts and seeds from that Hubbard for natural dyeing. Should work, right? I mean, what stain is harder to get out of fabric than spit-up squash baby food? I think it will require some experimentation with pH modifiers. Will keep you posted.