The End

With the closing of my last exhibition in the MK 50 Roadshow, this project has reached a natural conclusion. 2017 has been a stimulating and eventful year, and I have learned a great deal about natural dyeing and ecological processes. In the New Year, some of my bolts of cloth will be exhibited again in MK's Main Library, as part of a larger celebration of MK 50. In 2018, I shall move on to making the cloth up into eight dresses, each named for a Saint who is associated with the appropriate season of the Celtic year, as part of All Saints' Loughton's 800th birthday celebration. They will be on display in the church, alongside a Flower Festival, throughout Heritage Weekend in September 2018. Its high time to get sewing!

Yule

It is the opening of the final phase of the MK Makers' Roadshow this weekend, at the Three Hares Gallery in the Cowper Museum in Olney. I have managed to complete my Yule weaving (featuring mainly various colours derived from madder and woad) in time for the opening, so I shall be able to show all eight weavings that, taken together, represent the seasonal colours of Loughton. It has been a mammoth task, and I'm pleased finally to have reached the conclusion of the project.

Samhain

Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) is the third Celtic harvest festival that marks summer’s end and celebrates the gathering in of fruits of the earth such as pumpkins, gourds, turnips, parsnips and swedes, the storing of nuts and dried herbs and, in past times, the slaughter of those animals that could not survive through the long, cruel winter. Situated between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, it incorporates All Hallows Eve (October 31st), All Saints’ Day (November 1st) and All Souls’ Day (November 2nd). Before it became commercialised, Hallowe’en used to be thought of as a time when the veil separating the living and the dead became thin, so that the ancestors drew closer and the dead were remembered. Bonfires were lit to counter the waning power of the sun, as the days became shorter and colder. Many local customs involved playing tricks or making mischief whilst processing door-to-door and also divination or scrying, to see into the future. These have now been reimagined in the children’s pastime of ‘trick or treat’. All Saints’ Day, commemorating the Christian martyrs, dates from the fourth century and was fixed on November 1st by about AD 800. All Souls’ Day, which falls on November 2nd and is an occasion on which to remember our dead loved ones, is more recent, dating from AD 998 when Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, held a mass for all dead souls. It used to be believed that both the saints and the living could intercede for the dead, who were thought to be in Purgatory atoning for the sins they had committed during their lives on earth. Intercession would speed their progress towards Heaven.These beliefs lost ground after the Reformation, but were revived in the nineteenth century and are now standard feasts in the more sacramental churches. All Souls is a sombre festival at which the names of the departed are recited; All Saints is more spectacular and colourful ceremony at which the lives and example provided by saints and martyrs are recalled and celebrated. My Samhain weaving takes its colour palette from the fruits of the earth and its textures from the bark of trees.

Mabon

Mabon is a Celtic Fire Festival celebrated on September 20, 21, or 22, depending on when the Autumn Equinox falls and the length of day and of night are once more in perfect balance. So like its polar opposite, Ostara, Mabon marks a turning point, only instead of turning outward towards the coming Summer we begin to focus inward, as we prepare for the long, dark Winter to come. Mabon is the great festival of Autumn’s end. From now on the days will get shorter and the weather colder. Astrologically, it occurs under the sign of Libra - the Balance - my own birth sign and a fitting symbol of balanced light and darkness. In Rome, this equinox marked the festival of Dionysus, the God of Wine and Revelry. In Celtic times, Mabon conceded with the festival of Harvest Home, remembered in today’s church liturgy through our own Harvest Festival services. Mabon celebrates the end of the second harvest of nuts, apples, grapes and berries, and harvest berries and drupes feature in the weft of my Mabon weaving.The dyestuffs in my Mabon weaving include Weld, Weld over dyed with madder to give me orange, Coreopsis and Dyer’s Coreopsis, Tansy, lots of different colours obtained from the French Marigolds that are currently running riot on my allotment, Yarrow, Acer Buckthorn, Flowering Currant, Elderberries, cultivated and wild Blackberries and Sloes. The weft pattern of interlocking purple and gold represents the balance between light and darkness.

Lammas

Also known as Lughnassa, Lammas, celebrated on August 1st, is the Celtic festival of the first - i.e., grain - harvest of wheat barley rye and oats. The power of the sun goes into the grain as it ripens. It is then harvested and made into the first new bread of the season, which is taken to church, laid on the altar and dedicated during the Loaf Mass, hence Lammas. At this time of year, seed grain is also saved for planting next year's crop, which lies dormant underground during the Winter and rises again in Spring, when the new green shoots sprout, as the sun also rises in the sky. So Lammas is also a time to celebrate resurrection. As well as celebrating the first fruits of the grain harvest, Lammas recognises the fruits of our labours, and seeing the desires that we had at the start of the year unfold. Colours associated with Lammas include gold, yellow and orange. My Lammas weaving is a simple plain weave ombre in tones of greenish gold, dyed from French marigolds, coreopsis, weld, dyer’s chamomile, cosmos, golden rod, St. John’s Wort flowers, alder bark, barberry bark, artichoke leaves, apple leaves, rhubarb leaves sage, domestic carrot and yarrow.

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.