Brief Jottings on June

 JUNE  

A few notes and jottings for this month. Cropping the first lavender - hanging up in the studio to dry. I will use it in my hand woven lavender bags and sachets. I always put fresh sprigs layered in my fleece and wool storage too.
Harvesting my woad seed - I will dry them and pop them in a paper bag to store ready for next year's sowing.

 Had so much fun with sticks and wool by weaving some very organic artful  stick/ branch weaving
They will be little woolly accents placed around the garden allowing the flowers and plants to grow and intertwine.

AND

I held my first "Learn to weave on a Rigid Heddle loom" workshop.

Back in my March post I said this was something I had been planning to do for a while, so it was really good to introduce and share the joy of weaving with two students and thrilling to see their happy faces as they went home clutching their very first weavings. 

Woad Second Harvest!

 My woad plants continued to grow putting on some more fresh leaves, so it was the perfect opportunity to see if I could extract the blue pigment to be able to store some woad powder for the winter.
After steeping the leaves, the small harvest was removed. With the soda ash added I then whisked the dye liquid and allowed it to settle for a few hours.

 The "blue liquid magic" started to settle out, so it was just a matter of bit by bit pouring away the top water, letting it settle a little more and repeating. This task was much easier to achieve by filling lots of old jam jars so as I could see the blue pigment fall to the bottom.
I then cleaned and washed the pigment by topping up each jar with fresh water a few times.

 To dry the pigment to produce a powder I poured the concentrate onto a plate covered in cling film and left it in a warm place to slowly dry out.
The pigment dried in flakes and was delicately scrapped off the cling film into a dry storage jar.

As you can imagine I'm absolutely thrilled at being able to make my very own woad powder!!

Even if it is only a small amount from just a small handful of leaves, this year's harvest has been brilliant!

I have another jar with the pigment left in suspension. I may decide to dry this out or again use it to experiment with to compare my home grown, home made 

Woad Powder and Woad Suspension.

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.

Casting Off- On the Water

Skipper and I have just returned from a lovely little holiday in Herefordshire.

We set off on an early ferry from Yarmouth to Lymington so as we could view the "Round the Island Yacht Race" in fact our ferry had to weave it's way through the fleet across the Solent, so we had a great view of the competitors although as it was a breezy morning the large racing yachts had already made it around to The Needles, however there was still a good many yachts to enjoy.  

 The weather was amazing for this holiday "Herefordshire Heatwave" so of course we simply had to get on the water! We hired a canoe for the day. We paddled downstream on the River Wye.

 Stopping off on shingle shores for refreshments, absorbing the views and beautiful scenery, watching the wildlife on the river and generally having a fantastic day! In places the river was shaded by trees, calm and slow flowing, cooling and soft. Along the route there were bubbling rocky runs, light rapids of lively water sparkling in the sunshine. Exhilarating, energy giving refreshing little rides over the rocks.

Canoe The Wye

http://www.canoethewye.co.uk/

Super day on the river from these folks.

Other news

As a little taster, I want to let you know about my "search for colour"   I held a Natural Dyeing day in my garden with my sister. Jude has written a super blog post at

http://potsandpaint.blogspot.co.uk/

  

I will be blogging more about this day myself and another day coming up after I have harvested my Woad and will let you know how it works!

Time To Grow

 March has been a time to get things started. A time to grow. Here is a photo of a woad plant I have left to grow on and hopefully produce seeds for my next year's stock. The photo below shows my woad seed collected from last year's plants. (Woad is biennial)

 I planted some in seed trays in the greenhouse and some direct in the ground under a cloche, as you can see in just a week the ones in the greenhouse have grown into tiny seedlings! the hope and promise of wonderful homegrown natural blue dye for my wool this year.

 While things grow, Skipper and I decided to spend a few days in Devon and enjoy the spring weather, fresh air and beautiful scenery.
A time to relax and be inspired, grow and nurture our own ideas for this year's projects.
 We visited  Arts and Craft centres and explored Dartmoor, walked up to Haytor and did some coastal hopping all along the South coast on our way home -Teignmouth, Exmouth, Sidmouth, Bridport and West Bay.

HAYTOR

 While in Bovey Tracey I made sure my stash this year continues to grow too! I called in at
Spin A Yarn

http://www.spinayarndevon.co.uk/

and treated myself to a gorgeous collection of roving and various yummy yarns.

 Then for my hand painted yarn and dyeing projects I bought a steamer and a good selection of tools to go with it.

I aim to grow my knowledge and experience, develop my skills in producing more of my own yarns, hand spun, hand dyed, hand knitted and hand woven.