Dy(e)ing to eat and eating to dye

Again, I want to repeat that this is NOT a food blog.

However, the other day I grabbed a bunch of beans and lentils to make soup.  While the beans were soaking, I remembered I could use black beans to dye fabric.  So I put some black beans in a separate pot and allowed them to sit in water overnight

while I tore some used bed sheets to a size I could work with

and allowed these to soak overnight as well.

While the bed sheets continued to soak, I drained the black bean water and brought it to the basement studio.

where I split it between two jars this morning. 

I added alum (a mordant) to one jar, but left the other one plain.

This is what the black bean juice looks like tonight.  The jar on the right has the alum added, so I expect good things from it.  I hope to remove the fabric on Friday, thus allowing it to soak for five days in the bean juice.

Thank you for visiting and seeing what I'm dyeing to show you today.