Wonderwool and the aftermath

Well back from Wonderwool just about recovered and preparing for the next event which is a weekend workshop at Burton Manor teaching my brand new workshop Felt Sketchbooks of which more soon.

Enys and I had a lovely time and Enys sold all her plants apart from about 5 echium vulgare ( vipers bugloss) which we are growing for the purple you are supposed to be able to get from it's roots and for the butterlies. All the rest Woad, a tiny madder, a tiny chinese woad, Japanese polygonum, golden rod, reseda luteola and phytolacra all went and Enys brought herself two dresses on the strength of it! I had a lot of interest in my inks, sold some and have had orders since the fair, and in my books, less in my naturally dyed merino tops. In this situation where people are selling rainbow dyed merino and silks in synthetic dyes for half the price they do seem expensive. However I met lots of interesting people including an artist who is having an exhibition with others around plants and so brought loads of plant dyed fibres as well as the inks.

My main concern was the look of the stall. We had been told that we could suspend meat hooks from the top of the shelling suspend a broomstick and suspend from that. This seemed a good idea, but the meat hooks did not go over the shelling so we were unable to use them and the walls looked very bare. I am having a frame made for the WoolFest and plan to dye loads of fabrics to hang from it so I hope it improves the look. There were a couple of stall which were very nice to look at in I wish I had had time to photograph them. Plant Dyed Fibres had the walls hung with naturally dyed wool cloth which was fabulous and lovely to be in and the two ladies who sell Coloures des Plantes natural dye extracts had a very stylish stall.

I brought some fantastic fine fabric from Sloe Loris from South West China with beaten indigo so was a wonderful bronze colour covered with a wash of egg to waterproof it and also with persimmon. The peimmon one is a very dark green. He was astonished that I knew about fermented persimmons and said I was the first person he had met who knewanything about this "dye". So thanks to Chris Conrad whose book I am reviewing on this very subject! This is the photograph at the top of the page and the persimmon coated cloth is the one on the right. Don't say as did naughty dh it looks like a bin bag!