Gift Idea No. 6!

While we experience these dull grey days we start to think of Spring and Summer next year. I love holidays that allow me to indulge my passion for all things "Textile", so would love nothing more than to spend my time weaving, dyeing, spinning, etc!

Spring and Summer are a long way off, but you could treat someone close (or yourself!) to a week-end break. Skylark Holidays run week-end breaks and 5 day holidays in the heart of the UK, in an unspoilt corner of Derbyshire, at Windlehill Farm. The farm provides a special setting, with a duck pond greeting you as you approach the entrance and its characteristic group of buildings surrounding the farmyard and raised water feature. There has been a high quality restoration, providing meeting rooms, studios and four-star self-catering accommodation.

This friendly, approachable company can put together a gift voucher to suit your needs and budget, so give them a ring on 01283 701729 or email paulhunt@skylarkholidays.co.uk

Gift Idea No. 5!

Hello again.

I've had some lovely results with my indigo over the summer and you may have seen my centre pull ball and twisted hank experiments. I've woven the two, 100g centre pull balls into lovely large scarves with some indigo dyed boucle. They could be knitted rather than woven if you prefer, but they are really lovely and quite simple to dye using the Jenny Dean "Colour Run Remover" method!

With this in mind why not buy a pack of indigo and a hank of Blue Faced Leicester Chunky Texture Yarn and we'll add the instructions for dyeing with the centre pull balls or twisted hank and throw in a knitting pattern, crochet pattern and weaving instructions for a Knitters Loom (rigid heddle loom), too!

Gift Idea No. 4!

While I'm on the "Book Theme" how about a gift for a spinner, experienced or new!

Creative Spinning, by me and Jane Deane has proved very popular and has had some great reviews:

• "Hi Alison and Jane. It's great, lovely photography and samples." Rosemarie

• "The book arrived 3 minutes ago! I've just opened it and it's absolutely beautiful. Just skimming through the pages gave me that "excited" feeling, I can't wait to go through it in more detail. And it's signed by both of you!" Ann

Give a spinning friend or relative that "exited" feeling when they open this on Christmas Day!

It's on special offer at the moment, so at just £10 it's a bargain as well.

Gift Idea No. 3!

Woops, I missed a post yesterday, so am a day behind!

It's given me a little time to think about what would make a good present. I've always been very partial to books, so thought that Jenny Dean's newest book, Colours from Nature would make a lovely gift.

Colours from Nature describes in full detail how to prepare and use natural dyes on a variety of fibres to produce a wide range of colours, following safe and environmentally-friendly methods. It has a comprehensive recipe section giving instructions for over 100 colours, using both traditional dyes such as cochineal, indigo, madder and weld, and dyes from common plants such as blackberry, rhubarb, oak and walnut, as well as instructions for some natural dye extract.

Jenny has been working with natural dyes for over 30 years and lectures and runs courses and workshops on natural dyeing and has written widely on the subject.

At £13.50 this is a gem of a book and well worth a place on a "Fibre Addicts" book shelf!

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.