Natural Dyeing

At last, a wee report on the joys of natural dyeing the easy way!

A small but dedicated band of coffee drinkers/cake testers met to explore the dyes sold by Alison at Pure Tinctoria.

I had followed her suggestions and pre-mordanted all our yarns with alum. We then dyed five different 'straight' shades before modifying them with various substances - like water with rusty iron in it, water with copper piping in it and citric acid.

Although some of the pure shades had seemed a bit over- bright (could have been my measuring of dye powder...) the modifiers soon softened them down and we ended up with some lovely colours. Everyone went home with twenty different shades to make a shade card and enough of a couple of their chosen shades to knit a small project with.

Meanwhile tomorrow we are off to Woolfest - I missed last year's and am really looking forward to a textile extravaganza - who cares if it is STILL raining...