Dyeing Fabric: I took a rug hooking class a few years back, and we worked mostly with scrap wool, but sometimes with cotton or silk. The teacher believed in natural dyes, and each time we came to class, there would be a pot on the stove with a new color for us to add our fabrics to.

The one we all liked best was--Onion Skins! We collected those yellow-orange skins at the bottom of the grocer's bin, put them in a nylon bag and tossed them into water to boil for 10 minutes. Then we turned off the heat and added the fabrics and let them soak till they were the right color. It turned light fabrics a subtle shade of off white and always seemed to unify the general coloration on a bunch of otherwise unmatching patterns and fabrics.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy, Princeton, NJ