Armley Mills Dyeing Project - Dyeing begins!

A great day yesterday at Armley Mills producing the first samples from the Gott recipe book. We tried 3 different recipes and although we had to do a bit of tweaking of the recipes (distilling sulphuric acid and nitric acid weren't really in the spirit of the session!) we got some great results.

Scaling down the quantities was a challenge - the recipes have little information about the quantity of goods dyed by each recipe so I did some scaling down based more on using small amounts of ingredients and seeing what we could dye! I did calculate the right ratio of ingredients if not an accurate wof:wog (weight of fibre: weight of goods). As a result the colours were certainly in the right ballpark albeit pretty intense and there was plenty left in the baths. I'm sure this wouldn't have been the way dyehouses would have operated as it would have been very wasteful. This leads to questions about whether dyebaths were expected to exhaust after each bath, whether a vat would be used for each shade/range of shades and topped up? If there's a dyehouse dyer in your family history, maybe you could get in touch and let me know?

So, a great start with more excitement to come hopefully!

Dyeing al fresco!

A good summer has had an added, unexpected benefit - al fresco workshops!

Rachel's lovely shop at Sitting Knitting just outside Birmingham is in a beautiful old building but it's even nicer when we can take the tables, pots and pans outdoors.

Introduction to dyeing was the order of the day and the group produced a super range of sample cards and some very inspiring mini-skeins.

By the afternoon they were in full swing producing beautiful colourways....

Beautiful, no? And if you'd like to see more, including some lovely finished projects, have a look at Rachel's facebook page

Thank you to Rachel for a lovely day - we'll look forward to seeing you again soon!

Summer School 2015 - The Dyer's Recipe Book

Hand-dyed wool samples with synthetic dyes

 I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that I'll be tutoring again at the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers Summer School next August (2015) :-)

My course this time will be an in-depth focus on making your own dye recipe book, creating repeatable colours and colour theory using synthetic dyes. There will, of course, be lots of scope for putting your knowledge into practice, trying out some fun dyeing techniques and generally having a great time with colour exploration but if you're keen to get a good grounding in predicting and planning colourways, this will be an ideal course for you!

You'll find lots more info about the venue, prices, course programme and how to book on the Summer School blog here. For information about the Association in general (and some great pics of last Summer School) the main website is here.

And, if you'd like to see some of the photos from my last Summer School courses, there's a tiny taster selection here

If you've never been to a Summer School before it is an amazing experience - a whole week of textile exuberance - expect to see spinning wheels round every corner, knitters in every nook and cranny, weavers beavering away into the wee small hours and wall-to-wall chatter about all things textile-related! Heavenly!

Growing for Colour Project at Leeds Industrial Museum

Growing for Colour is a new project I'm really excited to be involved with. The project is a collaboration between Leeds City Council, Hyde Park Source and DT Craft & Design (that'll be me, then!) to convert part of the outdoor space at the Leeds Industrial Museum site at Armley Mills into a colour garden, filled with interesting traditional dyeplants. Working with volunteers we'll be clearing the garden area, planting lots of exciting dyeplants, and dyeing fabrics and yarn with our homegrown and locally foraged dyestuffs.

Yesterday we had our first session. The sun shone bright and warm and the rain the previous night had nicely softened the ground, perfect for weeding and digging!

We had a bit of work to do refreshing the beds and borders after winter, and some of the plants have made themselves very much at home!

 A quick survey of the beds did reveal some tentative shoots of goldenrod,

tansy

and a couple of possible woad plants.

A nice healthy crop of madder was also spotted so I think we can look forward to some good reds!

I've been busy taking photos so I can do a bit of plant-spotting before next week as some of the plants aren't quite big enough to identify yet, although there may be some hollyhocks. We also have dyer's chamomile enjoying the spring warmth in planters along the front of the mill cottages.

A spot of seed planting after a picnic lunch courtesy of the Armley Town Street Hub's Pay as You Feel Cafe

After a hard day's work, our borders are almost ready for planting and our first crop of seeds is sown...

If you'd like to join us, simply come down to the Museum between 11am and 3pm on Tuesday. All materials are provided but bring a packed lunch and outdoor clothing (we've booked sunshine but you just never know!). Our next session will be preparing our yarns and fabrics for dyeing, doing a spot of foraging for local, wild-growing dyestuffs on the site and having a look at what you can re-purpose from your kitchen and cupboards to produce lovely colours - see you next week!

Car boot-y!

Car boot sales are always fun (even if only for those "oh my, we have/had one of those" moments!). But just occasionally they turn up something really interesting. And this was my little gem, picked up in Cheshire.....

What a terrific little haul of old dyes :-) !

Local dyes developed and made in Bolton...

Of particular interest is that these dyes are shown as dyeing both cottons and wools - an early fibre reactive dye perhaps? Must research this further....

Likewise these Fairy Dyes, manufactured in Glasgow, also refer to dyeing both wools and cottons, so clearly it wasn't a one-off. It's amazing that the dye is in tiny little glass test tubes with cork stoppers.

These dyes are possibly older? I haven't heard of this company so will need to do some more digging to find out.

 I'm guessing the jiffy dyes must date to around the 40's judging by this little message on the label...

Isn't it incredible how much we take for granted? And how every little bit of recycling really did count.