Colour Palette of the Month - April!

Last month Jane Deane, Amanda Hannaford, Helen Melvin and I were in The Hague for a workshop.  It was arranged by Dineke de With, who lives in Leidschendam just north of the city.  We were making our way to catch the tram into The Hague when we came across this building which immediately made Jane and I think "Rug"!

I was tempted to rotate the image of the building 90 degrees, laying it on it's side, more reminiscent of a rug, but resisted.  Would you have rotated it?  I'd be interested to know.


So what colours would I use to dye the yarn for my rug?
From Left to Right:
Golden dock modified with iron.
Golden dock modified with copper.
Myrobalan modified with citric acid.
Myrobalan modified with iron.
Cutch.
Golden dock modified with washing soda.
Pomegranate modified with iron.
Red lac modified with iron.
Don't for get that these colours are with my water, they may vary with the water in your area.
What would you use?

mudbatik-natural dye process 10 min.wmv

Here is an interesting video showing how to use mud as a resist when natural dyeing.

Gift Idea No. 9!

This is a really simple idea, following on from the last post.

For spinners who've never tried natural dye extracts (or even dyeing!), why not buy them one of the substantive dyes that contain tannin. These are Amber-M (Oak Gall), Kango (Myrobalan), Pacific (Pomegranate) and Thar (Cutch). One 25g packet of any one of these dyes will dye 500g of fibres and shouldn't need any other mordant, such as alum and cream of tartar and so can be done in one step:

• Weight your fibres in their dry state
• Wet them out (if using tops curl them into a bundle and secure end round the bundle then immerse in warm water with a squirt of washing liquid
• Weigh up to 5g of dye extract for each 100g of wool yarn.
• Dissolve the dye in a small amount of water, heating if necessary to aid the dissolving or add a "grain" of washing soda.
• Top up the water so that it will be sufficient to cover your yarn when it's in the pot.
• Add your wetted out yarn to the pot.
• Slowly bring to a simmer over about 45 minutes.
• Simmer for 45 minutes.
• Cool in the pot then rinse thoroughly.

For as little as £1.30 for the dye and your fibrey friends own fibre what more could they want!