Dyeing With Spices

I have a new project in mind that requires wool yarn. I have a bag of wool yarn that I purchased from Goodwill for 3.99. Unfortunately it's all white. I thought I'd try using spices to dye it. I've used commercial dyes, Kood-Aid dyes, natural dyes, so this is new for me. * First I tried chili powder which was supposed to give me a brick red color. Here's the yarn, pre-dye.

I used 1/4 cup chili powder for each 4 cups of water. So that was 2 cups total.

I put the powder in cloth bags and boiled it for an hour and a half.

I added a cup of vinegar for every four cups of dye bath.

This is the color of the dye.

I simmered the yarn in the dye bath for an hour and the color just didn't take. Either this isn't wool or the chili powder is too old? It's been sitting in my pantry for at least 6 years. :) So I decided to try dyeing with turmeric instead. Here's the comparison of the colors-

The top photo is the one with the chili powder. The color is a tan/very light brown. The bottom one is the turmeric. Too much color??? I love yellow-good thing. Paprika is good for dyeing, also. I buy my spices in bulk from the local buying club and they're very reasonable. * Now I'll do a sample swatch and see if this yarn will felt. If anyone tries dyeing this way, maybe you could share some photos of the end results.

Plants to Dye For

photo from eHow-sumac

I'm going to try and utilize more of the plants that are growing around here for dying my fiber.  I've tried beets before and onion skins, but I'm going to do some experimenting.  We have a lot of plants that are dye plants.
These are the colors using alum as a mordant and dying wool.

For yellow dyes-
yellow yarrow
goldenrod
tansy
black-eyed susan
sunflowers
dandelion
dock

Blue dye
Woad-I guess it grows wild around here, I'm going to go out foraging and see what I can find.
blueberries

Brown dye
Red Sumac berries
tea

Apricot-Orange dye
jewelweed
carrots

green-
lamb's quarters
carrot tops
spinach
queen anne's lace

There are more, but most fall under the yellow/gold dye catagory.  These are just some of the things that I have in the field, gardens, or woods that can be used as dyestuffs. 
If you want to know if a plant has color, place it on a newspaper, put a piece of muslin over it and pound it with a hammer.  If the juice of the plant leaves color, you can give it a try.  I'm going to try huckleberries.  I'm hoping to get a nice purple hue.  I wonder if you could get a pink from rasberries??

So much to try, so little time.