Look what I've made!

I've now filled another drawer with thirty lovely early autumn colours from plants sourced locally in Loughton.

Yarrow and Blackberries

More lovely, yummy early autumn colours from the allotment and the hedgerow.

The Dye Garden at Peak Production

From not having had a great many plants to dye with, I've now got a glut of just about everything. I've been freezing batches of French Marigolds to preserve them for later in the year but the more I cut them, the more they come into flower.

The same with the Golden Rod. I've taken a crop of these already, but they have come back into flower.

So have the Cosmos.

My Madder is growing well, but is too young to harvest, as I need to take the roots.

The Gypsywort is growing strongly, but I have not harvested it yet. It is supposed to produce a black dye.

The Woad and the Weld are both doing well. I should be able to take a small crop soon.

My Mallow plants were so small when I bought them that they got lost in the weeds, but now they are rampaging though the plot!

I've already taken a crop form the Rudbeckia, but it is back in flower again.

I took a harvest from the Tansy yesterday, but it has lots of buds coming along.

The same is true of my Yarrow plant.

The only plant that is still to flower is my Coreopsis. The plants in the garden have already given me a crop, but these in the allotment were planted this year as plug plants, and they are only just beginning to flower.

It is so lovely to be able to pick plants that one has grown, and make dyes from them.

Sloes

I went foraging for sloes yesterday, to add to my palette of late summer skeins of naturally dyed wool. Some blackthorn bushes were loaded with drupes, but others were completely bare. Fortunately I was able to gather sufficient for three skeins. I'm pleased with the lavender and grey shades, but I'm guessing that they won't be completely colourfast. From the left, mordanted with alum, with copper and with alum plus tin.

Taking Stock

The year 2017 is two-thirds over already. How time flies! It is time to take stock of where my natural dyeing project based on the colours of Loughton (my home village) has led me. I have finished four weavings (Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane and Litha), and I still have another four to go (Lammas, Mabon, Samhain and Yule). I should have finished Lammas by now, but I'm a bit behind due to having organised a Scarecrow Festival in Loughton and then taken a summer holiday.

The maths is simple. Each weaving comprises 26 warp colours and 26 weft colours. That's 52 skeins per weaving, the same as the number of weeks in a year. Therefore, I need a minimum of 208 skeins to complete the project. I have already wound another warp, reducing that total by 26 skeins, to 182 skeins.

Over the last couple of days, I have wound all the remaining skeins in my stash into balls and sorted them into trays by colour palette. Here they are: 30 x brown and olive green (mainly modified with iron water), at least 30 x madder and woad; 22 x shades of yellow, mostly recent and dyed from late summer flowers; 26 shades of greenish yellow dyed in one step from various local plants and finally 15 x 'Lincoln green' made from various yellow skeins that have been over dyed with woad. That's 123 skeins altogether. I still need to dye another 59 skeins by the end of the year, which seems do-able. I shall be out foraging for blackberries, sloes and elderberries this week in order to make a start.

More Madder

I've been busy with a short course on Eco-printing, for which I had to buy some madder extract. I thought I'd see if it made a difference to the colours I obtained, as I've not been managing to get a good red from madder roots. The extract gave me some delightfully intense colours with alum, copper and tin mordants, and also when I over dyed some of my woad skeins that I thought were a bit insipid. It is well worth experimenting!

Late Summer Flowers

The results of yesterday's harvest are interesting, as always. The Coreopsis yielded some quite strong orange shades; Yellow Cosmos, by far the palest flower, gave me good range of yellow tones; and the Rudbeckia (the most intense flower heads in shades of gold and brown) gave me three soft greens. You just never know! From the left, each set was mordanted with alum, copper and alum plus tin. I've decided not to use iron to 'sadden' a fourth skein, as the result is always brown or deep olive green. I have enough of these skeins to finish the project, so for the time being I'll concentrate on dyeing brighter, happier colours.

This Morning's Harvest

Rudbeckia, Yellow Cosmos and Dyer's Coreopsis, simmering on my hob. I wonder what colours these will yield? Can't wait to find out!