Colour Inspiration

If your looking for colour inspiration, take a look at this beautiful blog: Kris's Color Stipes

Beautiful colour stripes inspired by the bloggers life and fabulous textiles.  Well worth a scroll down the whole page!

More Places to buy Pure Tinctoria Extracts

You can buy Pure Tinctoria Dyes from the following places:

Eco-Haberdashery Shop
Unit 1.10 OXO Tower Wharf, facing the river.
Opening hours: 12pm-6pm, Tues-Sat.
http://www.anniesherburne.co.uk/shop.html

Jane Deane
Duchy Square Centre For Creativity
Tavistock Road
Princetown
Devon
PL20 6QF

Tel: 01822 612338
Email: jane@janedeane.co.uk
http://www.janedeane.co.uk/puretinctoria.html 

We will be having a stockist in the Netherlands soon, so watch this space!

Summer Competition

It's been very busy here, and feel very guilty that we haven't announced the winner of the Summer Competition!
So without much ado, we can announce that Sarah Johnson has won the Mini Starter Kit for her lovely had design, which Alison is busy knitting up now and will be featured in a later blog.
Mary Wilson won the Spring 4 Collection for her mitten pattern. Sadly we can't use both pattern as we don't have enough yarn.

Well done Sarah and Mary.

1 more week to enter our Summer Competition

We launched this competition way back at the beginning of July and today is 1 September! Were has the Summer gone, it really feels like Autumn now.

We are giving you another week, until the children go back to school, to put your thinking caps on and then we will close it and select the winners. There have been some lovely ideas, so it's going to be a hard task to pick the one to use and the runner-up.

By the way, there is no need to purchase anything from the Pure Tinctoria website, just click on the Contact Us button in the top right hand corner and fill in the contact form! You will be automatically entered into the competition and if picked will win one of two prizes and have your idea produced in the yarn and featured on the Pure Tinctoria website and on this blog. So come on what are you waiting for..................

Dyeing with Plants

I've been notified by the Administrator at the University of Bristol Botanic Gardens that they have 2 new courses for the autumn:

• Natural dyes from plants - exploring the past and present uses. Five meetings weekly from 7 September 2009, 7pm to 9pm in the Linnaeus Study Room, University of Bristol Botanic Gardens.

• Indigo and Woad. A one day course, 10am to 5pm on 19 September, 2009 in the Linnaeus Study Room, University of Bristol Botanic Gardens.
  

The tutor for both these courses is Dr David J Hill, BSc, DPhil, MIEEM.

If you are interested in either or both of these courses please contact the following address or telephone number:
Adminsitrator
University of Bristol Botanic Garden
Hollybush Lane
Stoke Bishop
BS9 1JB

Telephone: 0117 331 4906
Fax: 0117 331 4909

Full details of the courses can be found at the following link:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/BotanicGardens/about/education.htm

Summer Competition Update

We are starting to get some lovely ideas from you all for our Summer Competition, ranging from a Multi-Directional Scarf to knitted mittens! Please keep the ideas coming in.

For those of you who missed our post about the competition, here are the rules:

Alison has spun some Shetland tops, she dyed earlier this year, and can't decide what to make from the yarn she has produced and is asking for your help. In return you can win one of two packs of dyes - a Mini Starter Kit or a Spring 4 Collection.

Alison dyed one 50g lot of Shetland tops with Myrobalan, Madder and Acacia Gum and the other 50gs was dyed with Red Lac and Annatto. She pulled staple lengths of fibre from each top and spun these in turn. The resulting singles yarn was then Navajo plyed (3 ply), to keep the lovely colours separate. There are approximately 8 - 9 wraps to an inch (Double Double/Chunky Yarn!) and approx. 250 yards in all.

We are looking for a suitable knitting or crochet pattern or whatever you can come up with that stylish and bang on trend!

For your chance to win one of the two dye kits you will need to visit the Pure Tinctoria website and either place an order and leave your idea in the comment section or click on Contact Us at the top right hand side of the website and leave your email address, name and message. The item that is produced from the winning idea will be featured on the Pure Tinctoria website and on this blog. We are looking forward to your ideas.

Good luck, oh, and the closing date is Monday 31 August, so there's just over a month for you to put your thinking caps on!

Sarah Pearson Cooke

I've just had a lovely email from Sarah Pearson Cooke: -

"I have been demonstrating and showing my work at Art in Action for the last four days and just wanted to let you know that I was endorsing your fabulous dyes! I hope you are not overwhelmed too much with orders, although I am sure this is not a bad thing! I have used your extracted natural dyes for some time on my peace silk cloth which I dye using Shibori processes. Your dyes were very well received at the event and are an important aspect in my journey in working to improving my ethical and environmental impact. I do hope you do not mind me passing on your business details to those who were interested."

Not only does Sarah use Peace Silk in her work, but some lovely hemp/silk fabric too, read about this here! Take a look a Sarah's lovely scarves and interior products to see how she uses our dyes. I particularly like her new Darjeeling Collection, such lovely greens and blues! oh, and take peek at her Online Boutique where she has a sale, I'm sure you will be tempted!

Indigo Workshop

Jane Deane is running an Indigo Dye Workshop at the Duchy Centre for Creativity in Princetown, Devon on Saturday 8 August from 10am to 4pm.

Jane's a great teacher and this will be a great day. So if you live in the area or are on holiday and can spare that Saturday you will be in for a treat for just £35 for the day., which is tremendous value. See the Duchy Website for details. Just go to events and scroll down to the Indigo Dye Workshop link and you will be able to send for all the information you need to enroll on the course.

Pure Tinctoria Summer Competition

Hi all

We are running a competition at Pure Tinctoria, this summer. Alison has spun some Shetland tops, she dyed earlier this year, and can't decide what to make from the yarn she has produced and is asking for your help. In return you can win one of two packs of dyes - a Mini Starter Kit or a Spring 4 Kit.

Alison dyed one 50g lot of Shetland tops with Myrobalan, Madder and Acacia Gum and the other 50gs was dyed with Red Lac and Annatto. She pulled staple lengths of fibre from each top and spun these in turn. The resulting singles yarn was then Navajo plyed (3 ply), to keep the lovely colours separate. There are approximately 8 - 9 wraps to an inch (Double Double/Chunky Yarn!) and approx. 250 yards in all.

Alison is looking for a suitable knitting or crochet pattern or whatever you can come up with that stylish and bang on trend!

For your chance to win one of the two dye kits you will need to visit the Pure Tinctoria website and either place an order and leave your idea in the comment section or click on Contact Us at the top right hand side of the website and leave your email address, name and message. The item that is produced from the winning idea will be featured on the Pure Tinctoria website and on this blog. We are looking forward to your ideas.

Good luck

Jenny Dean's Red & Purple Lac Experiments

I've just been trying to catch up with blog posts that I've been following. Rather late, I know, but I came across this blog post by Jenny Dean.
As you may know, Jenny Dean is a wonderfully experienced dyer and I have all of her books! She is the one person who has inspired me to keep dyeing naturally over the years.
Well, to the point, Jenny did some lovely dyeing experiments with red and purple lac way back in December and I wanted to draw your attention to her results. If you follow the following link you will see the results of modification on the lac which are truly wonderful: http://www.jennydean.co.uk/wordpress/?p=214
Many thanks Jenny!

Woolfest 09

This is my 3rd year at Woolfest and to say thank you to all my customers I'm offering a discount this year. Please take a look at the website to see what you have to do the get the discount and while your there make a list of what you think you might want!

Looking forward to seeing you all again on stand D89.

Alison

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I've not had much time to post just recently, I've been busy at the week-ends for the last month and preparing for them during the week.

At the end of May I was invited by the York and District Guild to tutor a "Backstrap Weaving Workshop" at Coberhill just north of Scarborough. I had a lovely time, the weather was perfect, although we spent it in doors most of the time, the accommodation and food at Coberhill was good and the people on the course were a delight! When I find my camera I'll post some images!

The following Saturday I was in Amersham talking to the Berkshire Guild about "Creative Spinning". After a terribly rainy start to the journey it ended in sunshine and a rewarding talk to the guild. Another lovely group of people.

Last week-end was our Guild Open Day. Beautiful weather brought out a lot of people and we all had a great time, not least because two of the husbands served the tea and coffee and the wonderful lunch we had all contributed to, leaving us plenty of time to spin, natter and shop with Vicky Smedley of MoBears, Janet Phillips of The Threashing Barn and Michael Williams with his wonderful drop spindles and spinning, weaving and lace making tools, amongst others.

This coming Saturday, I'm off to talk to the Oxford Guild on the Saturday afternoon and tutor a workshop on the Sunday. The talk is about how Jane Deane and I approached the Book and the workshop is "Creative Spinning". I really love what I do and enjoy passing on skills, ideas and encouraging creativity.

Then it's Woolfest! Woo Hoo! It's hard work, but so, so enjoyable and give everyone a great chance to catch up with old and new friends in the spinning, weaving and dyeing world. I for one am looking forward to the buzz of the two days and the Tatty Pot supper and Spin In.

See you there!

Mordanting Cellulose Fibres

I was reading Deb Bamfords blog, A History of Colour, today and her post was about mordanting cellulose fibres. This prompted me write about some mordanting I did earlier this year with my friend Lorraine.

Those of you who visit Pure Tinctoria at Woolfest and Wonderwool Wales will know Lorraine as my very able helper. I wanted to reward Lorraine for all the help she gives me at these events and won't take a penny in recompense. Knowing she likes makeing quilts, last year I gave her a dyeing kit and cotton fabric for her birthday, and we got together to do the mordanting.

Now, I'm a passionate advocate for wool, British in particular, so I had to get out all my books to check how to do the mordanting properly! I knew I could do it in a one stage process, using aluminium acetate, but Lorraine wanted to do it "traditionally" with the everything in her "kit". So we opted to follow the alum, tannin, alum process. The tannin component was Amber-M (Oak Gall).

I was really impressed with the fabulous colours we got. They are so rich.

This image is of the colours before Lorraine pressed the fabric, but even then they are really beautiful. From Left to Right they are:
Ganges (Dhak), Amazon (Annatto), Rhine-M (Red Lac) and Rhine-S (Purple Lac).

Rhubarb and Custard Update!

Well I've finally managed to take a photograph of my Rhubarb and Custard scarf and here it is.
I can't give you the pattern for this one as it's copyright, but it's knitted on the diagonal.

I spun the Shetland fibres by taking alternate staple lengths of each colour, red lac and marigold. I didn't want precise staples so that I got a good mix of red lac with red lac and marigold with marigold and red lac with marigold when I plied the two singles.

Rhubarb and Custard!

Hi, do you remember the hanks of wool yarn and Shetland tops I dyed at the end of last month, well I've spun up the 2% Red Lac (Rhine-M) and the 2% Marigold (Ambrosia) and here is the result.

I'm really delighted with the hank which is pun on my Jumbo flyer. I took staple lengths of each colour, alternating each colour as I spun. The staple lengths weren't accurately weighed as I wanted some overlap of the colours.

I'm going to knit it into a diagonal scarf, from a pattern I was shown in The Hague at Dineke's workshop last month, which I'm hoping will give me some subtle diagonal stripes. If I have any left I might just get out my Knitters Loom and weave a narrow scarf, too.

Fame at last!!

I was interviewed earlier this week by The Textiles Directory and have been featured in this weeks Friday Focus. Please take some time to read the interview here. You will also get a chance to win a Mini Starter Kit if you read all the way through to the end!

It was quite an in depth interview and hope that it will give every one some ideas of how to use natural dye extracts and some food for thought. Some of the ideas will be used in this blog in the coming months, in a little more detail, so please keep an eye open or subscribe to our RSS feed.

I was also contacted by Ethical Living magazine with a query from one of there reads. I'm hoping the answer to the query will be in a future issue of that magazine and that I will be able to do some articles with them in the future.

In the mean time have a look at the Pure Tinctoria online shop and have a great week-end.

Alison

Shetland Tops in Natural Dyes

Well I've spun up one of the Shetland tops I dyed at the demo on Saturday. (Tops 6)

I spun it on Monday and have been knitting a lovely spiral scarf that I was shown in The Hague.

This is the pattern:
Cast on 20 stitches
K one row
*Slip the 1st st, K 8, Yfwd, sl 1 P wise, Turn
P to end (10 st)
Sl 1st st, K 6, Yfwd, sl 1 P wise, Turn
P to end (8st)
Sl 1st st, K 4, yfwd, sl 1 P wise, Turn
P to end (6 st)
Sl 1st st, K 4, (pick up loop under next st and k together with that st, K 1) repeat once, Pick up next loop and k with st. P to end
Repeat from * until desired length is achieved, cast off and secure ends.

It's a really easy pattern and can be knitted in any yarn with any needles! Thanks to Dineke of De Spinners who showed me how!

Clay Cross Lace and Textile Celebration Day

Hi all

on Saturday I was invited to the above event in Derbyshire. In the morning I did a natural dye extracts demonstration and produced the lovely hanks and tops you can see on the right.
The hanks were 95% Blue Face Leicester with a 5% nylon binder and the tops were Shetland.
From the right:
Hank 1 - an immersion bath of Lodhra Bark (Amber-L).
Hank 2 - I painted this one with Annatto (Amazon) and Red Lac (Rhine-M).
Tops 1 - an immersion bath of a mix of Annatto and Red Lac.
Hank 3 - painted with Madder (Indus), Acacia Gum (Caspian) and Kamala (Basant).
Tops 2 - I painted this one with Madder (Indus), AcaciaGum (Caspian) and Myrobalan (Kango).
Tops 3 - this lovely baby pink was an immersion bath of 2% Red Lac (Rhine-M).
Tops 4 - a lovely soft lemon yellow from a 2% immersion bath of Marigold (Ambrosia).
Tops 5 - this is a baby alpaca and bleached tussah silk top painted with Madder (Indus) and Myrobalan (Kango) .
Hank 4 - painted with Madder (Indus), Myrobalan (Kango) and Rhubarb Root (Desert).
Tops 6 - painted with Annatto and Red Lac.

In the afternoon I tutored a Design for the Terrified Master Class. Altogether a very enjoyable day!

Using Pure Tinctoria Dyes in Paper Making

Jane Deane, a very accomplished dyer, has emailed this image to me. It's a collage of an Ichthyosaur, that was included in the design work for a piece of art as a book in Traces at Walford Mill gallery, Wimborne, Dorset, but it has been "re-commissioned" in its own right for an exhibition in September, based on the Jurassic Coast and called Stone, Paper, Scissors.

She used Pure Tinctoria's cutch (Thar) to dye the paper pulp with a varigated effect. Here's how she did it:

For a varigated effect to the paper, just dissolved the dye in water as you would do normally and stirred it into the pulp.

For a more even colour, mix the dye colour in the water for the paper vat, before you add the pulp.

I think it's really beautiful!