The garden - my main source for natural dyeing

A beautiful bright Easter weekend here and today there is no wind either, a truly beautiful day. 

Despite still battling food poisoning, and the resultant migraine I have managed to get in the garden on each of the last 4 days. It got rather neglected last year and I am trying not to play catch up all this year. 

I was cross with myself as last weekend I ate a hot cross bun without reading the label and that made me poorly. (I had to return to being dairy and onion free again!) this weekend I read the label brought and no mention of milk or cream or butter and I was still poorly although not so bad as the weekend before. 

I am pleased with the progress of the garden, last year we had the bamboo and its roots removed in March, a huge job! Today I completed the planting of two climbers and three trees to fill the spot. I am awaiting one more tree….. so more natural dyeing sources as they get established. On previous days I had cut the lawn/ moss patch and made straight edges on 3 sides of the bed under the apple tree….this looked so much better. The fourth side is going to join up with the side garden as I try and make cutting the lawn an easier job. 

The new bed, one more tree to arrive

I found a tremendous son and father who were apple tree pruning experts so the apple tree is in good shape and I have nearly got the cuttings stored away, some to be used as fire wood when dry and the bark of some to be used for natural dyeing and others for pea sticks etc in the garden. 

I don’t think you can see the sacks hanging at the back, they hold a stock of weld. 

Looking at the veranda 

The bark of apple gives a strong colour and these skeins all started with the basic apple bark colour and then had additives. These were dyed in 2016 and the colours are still strong. They were selected to be in the national exhibition of WSD, when it was held in the south west. 

Dyed with apple bark , left original natural wool colour, second left using apple bark 

At the end of last year I painted the covered veranda which adjoins the garden shed and this afternoon I treated myself to sitting in there. The only sound being bird song, the sun on my legs and able to enjoy the view. 

Looking out from the veranda 

Tomorrow’s job…deal with the  greenfly /whitefly on the roses… the wind has been too strong for me to feed the roses…how did they manage? 

I hope you all have had a lovely Easter too. 

Apple Dyed Skeins

The National Exhibition of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers in Killverton House is now on. This is my exhibit of Apple dyed yarn that was selected  for this by a panel of three judges. 

 

Each set of skeins is dyed with either Apple bark, Apple leaves or Apple 'core plus skin' . 

Dyeing with apple started at the end of last summer when I went to spin at an Apple and Sheep day at Oxburgh Hall, a beautiful National Trust property in Norfolk, along with 4 friends from Diss Guild. I thought it would be good if I could dye some yarn using apple to link in with the apple theme. 

I started with the bark and then thought I would try the leaves. Then I remembered a conversation with a member from Alsager Guild ( I used to be a member there when I lived in Cheshire) , she told me that the glorious spun yarn she had was dyed with apple skin and core, so I thought I would try that too. I love trying to get co-ordinating colours from one dye stuff ( see the Meadowsweet posts here!) so wasn't going to be content with just 3 colours. I also included a just mordanted skein as people frequently ask what the yarn was like to start with. The yarn is commercial Shetland yarn. 

So more information on the exhibition entry

Each skein is 10g and this was scoured with washing up liquid  and mordanted with alum and cream of tartar previously. 

 I worked at 200% for amount of dye stuff compared to the mass of the dry wool.  I chipped off small pieces of bark from twigs so I used the bark and not all the wood, and these were left to soak in rainwater for at least a week - we are in a hard water area. The leaves were shredded and soaked for at least a day and the apple core and skin was taken off the apples as we ate them, I think I made an apple crumble to to get more and they would also have been soaked for at least a day. Then each was boiled up, left to cool and strained. I did this over a period of a few weeks - Starting with the bark. 

I used a selection of modifiers selected from tin, copper and iron. The overdyes were selected from indigo, madder and cochineal. Having completed the apple bark set, I then decided what to use for the apple leaves set and then last of all I decided what to use for the ' core and skin set'. 

I am very happy with how they turned out and since then have produced a daffodil set and a ground elder set which you can find via the index.

Day 24 Creativity - Dyeing with Apple

I have seen a friend obtain beautiful soft shades of peach and yellow from dyeing with Apple. I have never tried to dye with Apple so thought I would give it a try. I am going to try sample skeins with the bark and the leaves- separately.
So the first job is to get enough bark to dye with. Usually increasing the surface area helps and another friend also suggested bark chips. So that is what I will try with soaking over 2/3 weeks.
Jill Goodwin, a dyer who I respect suggests soaking in soft water and also adding 1 tablespoon of vinegar to each batch while soaking so I will try both there tips. I guess the acidity from the vinegar is to help the rotting process. She notes pinks, browns, buffs and yellow so that is a wider range than I was expecting.
The leaves might be less useful, I have read that leaves in spring are what is needed.... But the leaves are looking healthy so I am going to have a try.
That was the theory, the practicalities of getting 100 g of Apple bark from my lovely old tree has proved more difficult than I thought! The large branches are all covered in lichen which I decided would affect the dyeing. So I stuck to your branches about a third the width of my little finger so getting 100g of bark from them turned out to be a laborious task. I thought I had a lot but when weighed it was 20g!! But I was surprised that after 3 hours soaking in water it looked like below. I think this must be a good sign.

Once this has had a good soak I will go about shredding leaves for the dyeing session.

The friend has just told me that she has tried apple skin and core too....something else to think about as I gather the windfalls.