Gift Idea No. 2!

Hi all

Why not introduce your "Fibery" friends to natural dyeing with the Spring Four Kit.

25g each of Ambrosia, Amber-L, Desert-V and Thar-G. From bottom to top in the image:

• Ambrosia - marigold - lemon yellow.
• Amber-L - lohdra bark - orange to peach.
• Desert-V - chaste tree - tans.
• Thar-V - cutch waste - olive greens and greys.

All for £7.50!

Christmas Looming!

I don't want to alarm anybody, but I was informed by the radio this morning that there are only 7 weeks to Christmas!

So, with this in mind, you might like to treat your "Fibrery" friends and relations to some lovely dyes. So here at Pure Tinctoria we've been thinking about what we'd like to receive as gifts and have come up with some ideas for you.

For the next couple of weeks we are going to post 1 gift idea each day, a bit like an advent calendar, but early enough for you to ponder gifts!

Day 1
For your friends who embroider, how about one of the lovely "Opportunity Packs" we had specially dyed by Jane Deane.

The image on the above shows one of these beautifully presented and totally unique packs.

Each Luxury Opportunity Pack has been hand dyed using Pure Tinctoria natural dye extracts and contains:

Fabric - 1 @ 25x25cms of silk noil, silk nuslin, cotton velvet or similar; a minimum of 30m of assorted yarns, silk fibres or wenslydale fleece and one of the following:- silk carrier rod, silk cocoons (3), buttons or similar.

The packs are just £12 each.

Hot News!

Hi all

I wanted to let you know some exciting news. Five of Pure Tinctoria's natural dye extracts gave been given their Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) which is really wonderful and the remaining dyes are due to get their GOTS in the next few months, so keep an eye out for that post, too.

The five dyes are Amazon (Annatto), Amber-M (Oak Gall), Indus (Madder), Kango (Myrobalan) and Thar (Cutch).

We have also been able to reduce the price of Amazon and Indus recently so please got to the Pure Tinctoria website for details.

Dyeing Bowmont Fleece

I've just had a set of images of the four new dyes, Marigold, Lodhra bark, Chaste Tree and Cutch waste, dyed onto Bowmont fleece.
Lesley Prior of Devon Fine Fibres has used them very successfully on her own Bowmont fleece.

The colours are, from left to right, Lodhra bark (Amber-L), Chaste Tree (Desert-V), Marigold (Ambroisa) and Cutch waste (Thar-G).

When she emailed me with the image she had this to say:

"I used 5% for the Desert but only 4% for the Amber. I think Bowmont
takes it up very well so the proportions for at least some of the dyes
could be reduced slightly depending on the effect you want of course.
Looking forward to using the other two!!!"

She also uses half the suggested quantities of dye on her kid and YG mohair and half to two thirds on her cashmere because it's ecru not white. She feels that two thirds is about right for the Bowmont.

You can read all about her dye session with Pure Tinctoria on her blog.

Brand New Product Launch!

We are very excited to launch our latest product.

Beautifully packs of luxury fabric, yarns and fibres all hand dyed by Jane Deane. These packs are ideal for creative embroiderers who are looking for that some thing that's different. Visit our website to see the full range.

More Indigo!

Here are the images of the centre-pull ball dyeing I did in the same indigo vat.


I already had some centre-pull balls wound tightly and only had to "wet them out". I then put a rod (long paint brush) through the centre and allowed the ball to just sit in the vat.

After about 5 minutes I flipped the ball over and let the other side sit in the vat, as you can see in the image on the left.



Here you can see the distinct areas of colour.













Below is onen of the hanks hanging on the line after washing and rinsing.



I did manage to warp two knitters loom with these yarns before I went to Woolfest, but didn't manage to do much weaving while I was there. I did finish the weaving at home on Sunday, by way of a rest! I will post images of those when I manage to find time to photograph them.

Indigo

Just before I want to Woolfest I tutored a dye workshop. During the course of the week-end we did some indigo dyeing. I love wool, so naturally I had lots of hanks of yarn, including some lovely Blue-faced leicester gimp.

I had some in hanks and some in centre-pull ball, so in a quiet moment I managed to "dunk" them in the indigo vat.

The first ones to go in where the hanks, which I tightly hanked, giving them a really good twist, until I couldn't twist any more. I then gave them a good wetting out, followed by a good squeeze and placed them one at a time in my vat. I pushed them carefully under the surface then allowed the hank to bob back to the surface.






The image on the left shows, clearly, the coppery coloured film of a vat that is in good order.



Carefully removing the hank, catching any drips in a jug, I allowed the hank to oxydise briefly, before unwinding and hanging on the line to fully oxydise. The image on the right shows the hank as I unwound it before hanging on the line.




Here is the hank hanging on the line to dry after washing and rinsing, with a final rinse with a small amount of vinegar in the water.