This week's dyeing experiment: (cheap) burgundy wine as dye! I used one skein superwash wool and one skein of 100% cotton. It was an interesting experiment, because plant fibers dye with time and protein fibers (ie, wool) dye with heat. This process shows it really clearly--there was 1hr of simmering between photos 1&2 and it doesn't affect the cotton AT ALL, and a 24hr soaking difference between photos 2&3 which doesn't change the wool fibers AT ALL.
To recreate either of these, this is what I'd recommend (ie do as I say, not as I did):
For the WOOL: rinse your superwash wool under cold tap water until wetted thoroughly, place in your dyepot, cover with red wine, bring up to a simmer & maintain that simmer for 1hr
For COTTON: soak cotton fiber for 1 hr prior to dyeing with about a tbs of sodium carbonate, rinse, then put in a quart sized mason jar and cover with wine. Let sit for 24hrs.
In either case, you definitely want to wash your yarn with soap before hanging to dry, as wine has sugar and whatnot that will attract bugs or break down the yarn. I use dish soap.
As far as wine, I used about 2L of Carlo Rossi burgundy, not because I drink it but because I also wanted the bottle so I could brew perry in it (pear cider, it's a historic thing and i get nerdy for historic stuff lol). Any red should work, but a cabernet sauvignon or the more full-bodied, extra-tannined reds would probably work best (I'm hypothesizing, but).
Sooo yeah! Wine yarn!