I wanted to see if I could get three different colours just by using shallot skins and two common mordants - alum and iron. So for starters, what is a shallot? They are related to onions, but smaller and generally pack in more flavour than their bigger cousins. I tend to preferentially collect their skins instead of onions because the dye seems to be a little more concentrated and dyes just that little bit deeper. When I first started collecting the skins, I figured I had to collect a whole ton of shallots - more than I could possibly use. But now I have it down to a lazy science.

Wool: three equal-sized skeins of wool from the Prairie Sea Fusion line. One mordanted with iron (6% WOF) and two mordanted with alum (16% WOF).