Despite some setbacks - the wind blew out the gas stove and we blew the fuses in the house when we overloaded the circuits (easily fixed in these days of modern fuseboxes) - we achieved a goodly number of colourful simmering vats. The use of ammonia as a modifier produced some intensely bright colours, and the aforementioned black elder gave an amazingly vibrant green. Helen kindly demonstrated her cold persicaria vat, which yielded an exquisite turquoise on silk.
In the foreground: the cold persicaria vat sitting and incubating. |
(demonstrating the differences between unmordanted fibre on the left, and fibre pre-treated with alum mordant on the right) |
The list of dyestuffs: Eucalyptus, Dahlia , Black elder leaves, marigold petals, Walnut, Persian berries and Persicaria tinctoria.
The list of colours, not in order: yellow, green, turquoise, brown......
And of course, we had plenty of time for lunch, tea and cake. With assistance from Hattie the Labrador.
A.C.
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