Daffodils! Natural Dyeing

 I love the Spring I'm enjoying the fresh new colours of the Season.
Time for some more natural dyeing, this month with some Daffodils.
 

Using just the flowerheads Bubbling up a nice Dye Bath.

 Straining the plant matter ready to add the pre- mordanted wool.

 I used some of my hand spun Shetland yarn.
 Rather than do an exhaust dip to produce a lighter shade of yellow I divided the dye bath solution into two pans. One pan I added soda ash at the start of the dye process, the other pan I added the soda ash right at the very end of the brewing.

 This gave me some subtle shades of yellow along with a nice depth of yellow colour.

 Here are the skeins hanging on our Woollen tree to dry in the Spring sunshine.

You can probably notice in this photo that the ties that secure the skeins and stop them from tangling  are of different colours to the yarn, here- red, navy and orange. I always use contrasting colours for my skeins so as I know where they are tied to avoid accidently snipping the yarn when balling them up. I have to be certain that the yarn I use for this task is colourfast of course so as not to corrupt my dye colours.  

A small sample of approximately 150g of Shetland hand spun wool, natural hand dyed with daffodils.
I just know it will come in handy for my knitting and weaving projects.

Natural Dyes - Colours and Blue

Naturally Dyed Wool and Fleece.
I have thoroughly enjoyed being in my garden this Summer creating colour!
My mission was to prepare a fleece to be dyed unspun as well as hand spun so as I could produce my own naturally dyed yarn.
I wanted to be outside and brew all the leaves and bark in large pots over an open fire pit. It feels more down to earth and so much more satisfying to be outdoors making a fire and taking the dye materials from the garden. My sister joined me which made it lots of fun and she is rather good at  cooking our lunch on the mini BBQ too ( a link to her blog is on my previous post ).

 Eucalyptus leaves  and Brazil wood bark dye baths.

 We managed to get a lovely array of colours with the first exhaust then, adding iron to some dye baths on the second exhaust to gain shades of colour.

 So pleased with the results!  The colours always look so beautiful together when they are made from Nature Herself. Plants, Water, Fire and a little bit o Magic

Now to tell you about my home grown WOAD

Vat Dyeing Method

I wanted to have back up in case it didn't work. So I prepared two Vat Dye Pots one for woad and the other Indigo. Indigo was straight forward vat dye with Indigo powder which works really well.
My woad was my own collected seed, planted, grown in the garden and harvested on the day.

My worry was that if I overheated the leaves they would lose their blue colour properties.

 Having harvested a good crop I was ecstatic when I got to the whisking stage in the procedure to see YES the BLUE was there!!

 Then it was time to dip the wool in the pot and wait .......... slowly lifting the skeins out into the open air and allowing the oxygen to reveal the most magical transformation.

 The chair on the left is the indigo dyed wools and the chair on the right fleece and skeins of my very own home grown woad.

As I wanted to experiment  I over dyed some Eucalyptus dyed wool - yellow in the woad blue and achieved a True Green which you might be able to spot in the photo.

I will certainly continue with my colour making with natural dyes and definitely grow another woad crop next year.

Small Projects and Preparation Work

 To start with, I want to show you three little pouches, two handwoven Saori style and one hand knitted. Small projects in colour and design in a mix of wools, silks and handspun detailing.
An enjoyable task while larger activities are on the go.
 

I have been washing fleece and spinning plenty of skeins in preparation for some Natural Dyeing.

I lit my new Fire Pit.  

So as I could Mordant all the wools ready for my Dyeing of the colours.

It was so much fun being out in the garden slowly working through all the collection of fleece and skeins I had produced over the weeks.

I used Alum for the mordant.

Another small project I'm working on is Hand Painting Silk Hankies. I have chosen colours inspired from the garden. The silk will be handspun on its own as I want it to be delicate and light, so as I can add it to my Saori weaving. 

Meanwhile, in the garden I have gathered my woad seeds from last year's crop (to store for next season) and look how well this year's woad plants are doing!

So preparation work is done, now ready to start Dyeing some yarn.

A festival of colour to come!