Hawthorn Flowers

On Sunday afternoon I sat in the garden in the sunshine, and stripped the flowers very carefully off a branch of hawthorn, cut from our hedge. Jenny Dean advises that no leaves or twigs should fall into the dye bath, as these dull the colour so I was careful to include only the flowers, musing about which parts of the white flower would dye the wool.

By the time I had finished, the dye bath was full of flowers, which I simmered slowly and carefully for an hour.

The following day I strained off the liquor and added four skeins of wool, three of which had been prepared with alum and one with copper. The results were pleasingly strong and unusual. Form the left, mordanted with alum, copper, alum + tin and alum + iron.