JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Last week, the girls and I made dye from walnuts as Confederate families did for war uniforms. With a hammer, I smashed three dozen shells into small pieces then boiled and steeped them in water for an afternoon. Before we used it as a dye, we strained the mixture and added a little vinegar. I couldn’t find shirts so we used small canvas bags instead. I showed the girls how to use rubber bands to make patterns, as with tie-dye. Confederate culture meets counter-culture, bridging a century of distance!

For contrast I included in the pot one square of a diaper, which is seen here photographed against the original.

Here is one dyed canvas bag against a plain one.

[recipe and idea from Janice Herbert’s The Civil War for Kids]