We assembled at Krithia's house on a cold August Sunday for a day of experimentation with natural dyes, and had an enjoyable time despite the bitter north wind. We all brought small samples of various fibres (mostly wool, of course, and a little bit of silk) pre-mordanted with alum. Krithia had worked hard to prepare a series of dye vats using unusual plants including "black" elder and berberis berries; other people provided their own contributions, from marigolds to fresh persicaria (Dyers knotweed) leaves. Our dye kitchen was set up under the tree house - a glorious structure mounted on telegraph poles, with a large paved area underneath.
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.
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| In the foreground: the cold persicaria vat sitting and incubating. |
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| (demonstrating the differences between unmordanted fibre on the left, and fibre pre-treated with alum mordant on the right) |
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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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