Natural Dyeing with Apple Twigs

I couple of days ago I dyed handspun BFL with apple twigs. Before Christmas my daughter collected and cut up half a bucket of apple twigs for me. When I came to look at them I was a bit concerned as they were showing some signs of mould but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and left them to soak for three days. I then drained the water off and using about half of the twigs (more would have been to much for my pot) put them into my dye pot and covered with water and boiled for about at hour and a half. I used a sieve to remove the twigs and debris and topped up with enough water for 100 gr of wool in two separate hanks. 50 gm had been mordanted in alum and the other 50gm had not been mordanted. I brought to the boil and simmered for about one hour. I then removed both hanks and added half a teaspoon of iron (mixed with warm water) to the dye bath and returned the unmordanted hank to the pot for about 5 mins.









As you can see the contrast is very clear between the alum and the iron. It is the first time I have used iron so I was very interested to see the difference.

Goosey Goosey Gander

We made an unscheduled stop at Crewe Park last week only to find that they are renovating it and most of it was cordoned off but I did manage to take a few photos - I particularly like this one.

Dyeing

I have done my first dyeing in 'the shed' I can't claim a great success - it didn't turn out how I had anticipated - much more colourful. I used Landscape Dyes (Christmas present) with an Ashford yellow. However, although it is still quite cold dyeing in the shed was successful so it is great to be able to get out there.

On the natural dye front I have some apple twigs soaking so I am looking forward to seeing what they produce.

Spinning

I have been spinning Shetland which
I bought from Andy's open day. It is really nice to spin and I have achieved quite a fine two-ply 15 wpi - my problem now seems to be achieving a double knit. I want to use the spun Shetland for natural dyeing.








Previous to the Shetland I spun some BFL which I had dyed some months ago with Ashford Dyes - this also spun up quite fine.








I have also been a bit more adventurous and spun a Baby Camel/Silk mix from World of Wool. It proved more difficult to spin than regular wool resulting in more unevenness but it is lovely and soft and has quite a sheen - it is 13 wpi. The downside is the 'camel fluff' seems to get everywhere and sticks to carpets and clothes.

New Shed in the Snow

We have replaced the greenhouse with a shed which is to be mainly for me....I can do my dyeing in there and store some of my wool. It was delivered on Monday 2nd Feb. which turned out to be the start of a really wintery week with snow and ice - although we didn't have nearly as much snow as many parts of Britain.







Fortunately the weather wasn't too bad when the shed arrived and it was built in double quick time....about quarter of an hour and that includes the men having a cup of coffee!

(photos taken with G9)

I also took some photographs of holly
in the garden - it is amazing that it
still has berries as the birds have
devoured all the berries off the
pyracantha.

Still Catching Up

We went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago to try out the new camera..... I was really pleased with a number of the photos but the one that pleased me the most was of a robin - he almost seemed to pose for me...and he wasn't captive.