Walking down a side path

Well, here are the final results of the Cochineal extract dye bath that was contaminated with....iron. Beautiful but not what I was trying to get so I will re-do this batch. Good thing I got extra yarn! The top twisted skein is the light DOS* the bottom twisted skein the dark. The very bottom of the picture has the loose skeins that were dipped in the iron afterbath. Not much color difference, just a little greyer. The color difference between the shades doesn't really show up well in any of the photos I took but you can tell the difference in person. There is no denying it, they are purple.
I had done something a bit different this time. I had made about 40 skeins up and split them into two batches to mordant. I mordanted the batch you are looking at and had 5 skeins left over. When I discovered the problem, I took the second 20 skeins and soaked them in the filtered water over night and spun out the excess water before mordanting them today. I am going to go onto Quebracho Red tomorrow and get another batch of skeins made up, washed in filtered water, mordanted and then try the cochineal extract again. In the meantime, what to do with the five remaining skeins that are saturated with iron? I decided to experiment a bit. I put them in a low-immersion crockpot dyebath with Cochineal and Fustic randomly splashed in. We shall see what they look like tomorrow so stay tuned. I am heroically restraining myself from pulling the skeins out to see what they look like until tomorrow. I figured they could be over-dyed with good old indigo if it doesn't work. I will talk about the process in tomorrow's post. It will be later like this post due to having to allow the skeins to dry before taking the picture.
What side paths have your "mistakes" led you down? -Renee

*see glossary