Dyes Past and Present

Our final outing of the year was to Buckinghamshire Guild for a talk and natural dyeing demo.

I'm fascinated by dye history but in particular, modern dye history, and over the last couple of years I've been amassing an interesting and much beloved collection of sample cards, samples books and recipes, dyes and all kinds of dyeing memorabilia. I realise that this wouldn't light most people's fire but I love researching old dyeworks and tracing the development of today's dyes from the early days of natural dyeing through William Perkin's revolutionary discovery of mauveine to the dyes we use today.

On which subject, one of my recent acquisitions was an original letter from William Perkin to fellow scientist, Dr Gladstone, from 1876, just 20 years after Perkin discovered Mauveine.

I don't have photos of many of the items in my collection but I'll try and take some and share them with you when I get a few minutes. (Don't worry, I'll flag up the post so that if this is about as exciting to you as someone else's holiday photos you can skip it!).

Anyway, I digress. The visit was most enjoyable - a lovely Guild and a very pleasant session. The mystery tour that was our journey home after a complete closure of the M40 was a different story but we got home safe and sound and that's what counts!

Thank you to the Guild for the invitation and for a lovely afternoon.