Our last post found me holding a loaf of bread in one hand and pulling off maple leaves on the side of the road with the other.

I brought them home and refrigerated them for a couple days while I debated using them.

We had some unseasonably warm days so I went for it.

I damped the scarf and the cotton towels again and rolled the leaves into it. I put the “bottom” of the leaves directly on the scarf.

I boiled them for 1 hr in my steamer pot with 1/2 teaspoon alum, turning every 15 minutes. I left it rolled for 24 hrs and then I unrolled it and let it air dry.

I did get some good leaf prints! I think I achieved my goal of foraging fall while out and about in my everyday life and turning it into something.

Do I love it? No. I was hoping for an abstract sort of print and I think I did do that but I think the alum darkened the scarf too much during the leaf printing. The scarf started out much lighter and got muddier looking as the project progressed.

You can see how much lighter the yarn is than even the blank spots on the scarf. I think it would have looked better with more contrast. I thought the alum might change it a bit but I wasn’t expecting it to be so much darker and muted, everything I read said that alum “brightens” color while iron darkens it which is why I used alum. I would not call this “bright”.

I can’t see doing anymore printing on the scarf but I feel like it needs something else. I might embroider it a bit? I don’t know how much more time I want to devote to it.