Tuesday 15 August 2017

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.






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