Summer

Summer seems to have finally arrived, with an abundance of sunshine and heat over the last couple of weeks. It’s been lovely to move outside to dye fabrics and threads, although typical, one batch of dye decided it was a little too hot and humid and shifted nicely from the pale ice pink colour it should have been to an albeit lovely blue toned violet! Hey ho, that’s the beauty of the dyes I use, they can misbehave and surprise you!

Last week I took a day off to go on a natural dyeing workshop run by Sian from Lancaster and Cornish – something I had only dabbled with previously. Held at the gorgeously picturesque Duchy of Cornwall Nursery, in an open sided tipi, it was so interesting and informative to see both the similarities and differences to my own dyeing practice. Using plants like madder, weld and coreopsis came a glorious colour palette from rich oranges to bright sunshine yellows, from dusky pink to greens made possible with the addition of iron and soda ash. 

This is definitely an area that has piqued my interest, so much so I have signed up for the natural dye journal, a quarterly subscription with beautifully presented study notes alongside dye materials and the softest, finest silk ribbons. I’m sure I’m not alone in becoming borderline obsessive with new hobbies but at least this means I can explore it in a way that isn’t going to mean me losing hours on end to the search engine beginning with ‘G’ and getting confused with the usual contradiction of methods! You can be sure I’ll be sharing more pictures of my experiments – I’m all for spreading the love of colour! 

(For anyone that wants to join me in exploring natural colours Sian is on Instagram – @lancasterandcornish – not an advertisement, chuckle, just sharing my newest find!)