Goings on

I may well do this as two separate entries, even if I do write them up on the same day. We'll see.

Saturday. I was at Bowland Guild to do a cut-down workshop on natural dyeing. I had said that I wasn't going to do any more, but I gave in, and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed brewing up pots again, and it was very simplified so not too arduous! I set up alkanet root, weld, madder and indigo.

Alkanet without any mordant. I didn't get to see any results, but don't expect that it amounted to much as it wasn't left anywhere near long enough to cook, everyone was so impatient!

Weld and madder with 10% alum:WOF directly in the dyepot. Both worked well, particularly the madder. I did ammonia afterbaths with both, the weld brightened considerably, the madder less so. But introduced another technique.



Indigo. I used the Jacquard pre-reduced form as I left it too late to get any instant from the States, and really didn't feel like doing a proper vat. But I actually liked the pre-reduced - it was very nearly as easy to do as the instant, and gave a good colour. My only quibble was that the "grains" were more like a slab of toffee and it was therefore hard to dissolve, but we did get there in the end!



None of the fleece was dyed to a deep shade, and a lot of stuffing of dye pot went on! But much fun, too. this was only meant to be a "taster" workshop, giving people an idea of what can be done in a fairly minimalist way, and in that, I think it succeeded. Hope so, anyway.





And in preparing for it, I found a small stash of wolf lichen from our last trip to California, which I have just used to dye some of the whitefaced woodland. I think the colour may have degraded a little with the passage of time, but still a reasonable yellow which will most likely be overdyed. Later this year, with any luck, I shall gather some more!