Tag: dyeing

How unseasonal can you get?

Only two months late. Lots going on, that’s all. Main memory of January – grey, grey and more grey. And some difficult moments, of course – four years now since everything changed.

Moving swiftly on. Some intimations of spring, for sure – violets, daffodils and even tulips getting going in the gardens opposite. And – at last – a bit of time for spinning again. I have a lot of plans for this. But first, finishing off some fractal spun art yarns that have been cluttering up my wheels for some weeks now. Feels good to have caught up – and I know of at least one person who will be glad to get some of it into a weaving project! The rest are heading for my Etsy shop.

Last minute challenge

Custom order for Etsy this morning – so busy, busy, busy……I don’t usually get the dyepots out for a single item, so I got quite a lot done in a lengthy session. Acid dyes only – I usually restrict my natural dyeing (with plants, wood, berries etc) to France where I can do everything outside – so much less messy!

Before I could start the actual dyeing, the work today included carding fleece, soaking all the material, mordanting some of it and mixing and preparing the dyes – some in syringes. I used a variety of techniques, including layering, injecting, hand painting and splattering. Such fun, though the clearing up can be tedious and, as usual, I ended up with multicoloured fingers and nails because I always end up ripping off the rubber gloves after about 10 minutes.

Blogvember day 10: Colour from Sussex Prairie Garden

These are October pictures – the Sussex Prairie Garden is closed now until June 1st 2024. But, as you can see, the season goes out with a blaze of colour – really spectacular place to wander around in, way more impressive than I was expecting – very calm, relaxed surroundings, definitely to be recommended for next year. It is a ‘new’ garden, designed and planted in the 20th and 21st centuries in West Sussex. It now claims to be the largest ‘prairie’ garden in Britain with 8 acres containing 35,000 plants – all apparently put there by friends and family of the owners! Quite a vision.

I had a magic afternoon, turning corner after dramatic corner – almost enough to get us through the grim grey that seems to have surrounded us ever since in the UK – and plenty of ideas for those dye baths!

Blogvember day 8: Drama in the outlines

Not sure where this is all heading (geometric quilts? twisted stitch patterns? more dye bath possibilities?) but the pictures I am taking at the moment, from street scenes to modern art, seem to be full of lines – if not always straight ones!

I had hoped to get some decent autumn shots this year, but between the relentless grey gloom, family events at weekends and finally storm Cieràn seeing off the leaves, it doesn’t seem likely. Sheffield Park (National Trust, about 20 miles away) is probably our closest reliably dramatic woodland -some years it can be spectacular. I took these a few seasons ago.

I think it’s the lake reflections that do the trick! This was actually the photo that inspired the knitwear in the centre of the first set of pictures.