Gathering Birch Bark

This morning I visited my local park, Loughton Valley Park, to gather some birch bark  for dyeing.

According to the manuals, it should yield shades of pink. Some of the trees are shedding their bark naturally, so I was able to glean most of what I needed from the ground, but I also noticed that one or two tree trunks bore quite deep scars like the area shown at the bottom left of this photo, as though someone had cut out sections of bark. Not me, I can assure you! The cracks in the bark, top right, are natural fissures.

Now, the bark is stewing in my slow cooker. It will remain there for at least three days before I try to dye from it. The stewed oak bark that I gathered a few days ago has been transferred to a dye bath. I'm hoping for some deeper, grey tones from the oak bark on its own. I'll post those results tomorrow.