Mum got me a pack of white cotton handkerchiefs for Christmas. I think three are still white? The rest have been dye experiments, so it seemed appropriate to use them for this class!

For the first one I followed the instructions and, as anticipated, got a very lovely daffodil handkerchief!

Then, since I had learned by accident that turmeric is pH reactive, I did some research into how make it change colour and repeated the lesson, this time adding baking soda to make the dye alkaline. I expected to get a bright scarlet red, since that's what had happened during the accident. The bath didn't quite do that, but it was a nice, rusty brick colour. I was, therefore, very surprised when I pulled it out and rinsed it, only to have the rust colour wash out and leave me with...green?

My first thought was that, despite washing it, there must have been some blue dye left over from an earlier project in the pot. But why wouldn't that have effected the first handkerchief? So I did some digging on ze 'net and while I couldn't find much, apparently this is a thing that occasionally happens!

It's a nice colour, I just wish I understood the process better so I could get it deliberately!