Nice. I remember watching a video on natural dyes and they discussed using a bit of "vinegar" or "alum" to "set" the color. Unfortuantely, I do not remember the specifics on this but something to look into. Also, I know that some wild flowers mixed with walnut hulls makes a more intense color. Marigolds are often mentioned as a good flower. Primarily the old heirloom varieties.
You can make the dye as dark as you want it, right up to very black. I use it to stain, leather, wood and most anything that takes dye. But I wait till the walnuts husk has turned black and then peal the husks off and let it simmer down, in a small amount of water on my wood stove in the shop. I may try some green ones this year. Helps when you just have to pick them up out of your driveway and yard...............1Cav
victor castle : Walnut bark, oak acorns, even the leaves from those trees will work for dying anything you want. I just like walnut because of the walnut meats inside, they're good for you. Actually the leaves have a higher percentage of tannins than the husks.
Brian trucking Landers, I have made dye from black walnut hulls that are completely black and simmer them over my wood stove and make it as dark as I want it. It will be pitch black in the jar and tan every thing. I do a lot of wood. Been doing this for over 30 years, as my property is over ran with walnut trees.
Try some late in the fall, after the hulls have about peeled off of the walnuts, if you have a place with a over over abundant amount of them. They will make a very dark dye. Yes your hands also if you don't wear gloves. It will make a wipe on wood dye even, if simmered down far enough.
Your dye extraction could be shortened if you break open the hulls by striking each one with a rubber hammer before putting them in the water. Green hulls exposed to air first will turn dark.
Keith Van Note : My brother and I used an old hand crank corn sheller, to get the walnut hulls. It's faster that way when you have several thousand walnuts to do. And yes the tannins will not only stain your hands but also dry them out and make them crack, use a good hand cream after your done. Even latex gloves will work.
If you want your dyes darker, scour your cotton in washing soda first, at a low simmer for an hour. Then you can let your fabric sit in the dye pot overnight or for a couple weeks (even if it molds) to deepen the color. Curious where you all are living to have so many of these walnuts freely available, that's a lucky thing.
I live in central Illinois and the alley behind our house is covered in black walnuts in the late summer and fall. There must be at least 10 big walnut trees back there. You could probably harvest the amount this guy had by using a snow shovel in like 30 seconds, that's how many there are.
Letting bark (or even spruce cones) soak in seawater (not sure if it has to be seawater or if that's just what was traditionally easier) for at least a couple of weeks gives you a dye that can be used to protect fabric or cordage from rotting. Let the material soak for a couple of days before taking it out and letting it dry. This cold-barking method was traditionally used for new sails and new ropes. When sails or ropes needed to be re-barked they used a boil-barking method where they added a bit of soda/lye to the water to make it a bit less acidic (pH 6 is good), and after boiling the bark long enough to get the desired amount of tannin out of it, they'd add more seawater to bring the temperature down to about 60°C and add some tar, making sure the liquid is neither too hot (which would make the tar black and lumpy) nor too cold (in which case it wouldn't dissolve properly). Then the sail was put in the tub, they'd make sure all of it was well-soaked, and everything was weighed down with clean stones and left to soak until the next day. When taking the material out, it would appear grey, but after drying it would become the maroon colour that's distinctive of a well-barked sail.
