Monday 23 May 2022

Natural Dye - Dandelion

 



In the Orchard area at the bottom of our Hillside Cottage garden we have an abundance of dandelions! So I decided to brew a little dye pot and capture a little of Nature's colour  growing there.

I wanted to use the flowerheads only for this dye bath. I placed them in a pot of water and boiled them up on our little camping stove. It was good to sit in the orchard, enjoying the spring sunshine and watching the wild life around me, baby rabbits squeezing under the hedge nibbling the long grass, kites circling above and the garden birds singing their many songs.

 



After about an hour of extracting the dye from the dandelion heads, I strained the liquid from them and added a couple of iron nails to the pot to help lift the colour a little.


My pre mordanted wool skein, 
 Shetland fleece handspun-alum mordant 


Then I added the wool to the dye bath and gently simmered the pot for another hour until the wool had absorbed all the colour 


Hanging the skein up to dry in the tree.
The pale yellow colour achieved is gentle and almost a soft lemon.
This wool will be used in my Saori weaving, when woven with other naturally dyed yarns it will give me a way to highlight, lift and lighten a piece of cloth.

This is my first natural dyeing at our new home - Hillside cottage.
It is thrilling to be able to source my colours from my garden. 

We have been busy creating a Weaver's Garden. A place to brew my colours on the firepit surrounded by home grown dye plants.
We will show you more over on our  You tube channel
shortly.













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