G.O.D and Eco brooches but not the fermented madder

Thank you for kind messages about the dear old dog sometimes called G.O.D -short for grumpy old dog because he insists on his dinner punctually -you can practically see him tapping his watch-"what time do you calls this?" he barks at 5.05 . You can tell from this that he is enjoying his life to the full and the few extra treats that have come his way as I have taken on board the suggestion that I pamper him a bit. A dear friend of mine, not the doggiest of people, emailed me to point out that he has been living in doggy heaven for the last eleven years-two walks a day & lots of company as I work from home. I am also reminded of another friend who said “when I am reincarnated I want to come back as one of your dogs".
Thank you for all you supportive comments both on and off list.

I was going to put up pictures of my fermented madder but they are not very good so I will try again tomorrow so tonight I want to tell you about the nice day I have had with my friend Anne. Anne and I have been making felt together now for many years and before that she taught me to spin and also the technique for rainbow dyeing fibres and fabrics which together we adapted to use with the extract dyes. We always find working together rewarding as we like each other's work very much but mostly because we not only inspire each other but strike creative sparks. Like two children we get very excited and jump around the room and so focused on what we are doing that we also find, like small children do, it hard to break off and go to the loo.
For many years we taught workshops together and last year we were going to teach felt at the biannual summer school for the UK Weaver Spinners and Dyers. Two weeks before this event Anne's husband Alex had a catastrophic stroke which left him completely paralysed down his left side and wheel chair bound. For a time it looked as for both of them that they had been stopped in their tracks. Alex from mountain walking, canoeing ,and most importantly painting ( he is a successful artist) and Anne now a full time carer from pursuing her textile interests which were and are a consuming passion. However slowly they have pieced their life together and today for the first time for nearly a year Anne and I had great fun making felt together .We made brooches- a new range of eco brooches using naturally dyed fibres and recycled silks. Here is a photo of the sum of our mornings work, pieces of felt on the way to be turned into brooches and a picture of Anne.

nothing about dyeing but a bit about reality

Anybody reading my blog about the fliming of the dye garden may very well feel that it sounds a little flat. I did enjoy the day and found it interesting but in the middle of the day I received a phone call to say that on the eve of exchange of contracts ( that is a house sale just about to become legal ) that the sale of my father's house has fallen through, and for the second time. My father lived next door to me, after the death of my mother, for three years in a big bright sunny bungalow with views of the Clywdian hills and loved it. He died 18months ago and I still miss him. I was looking forward to seeing someone else living there and being able to move on but we have been hit by the savage downturn in the UK housing market. I found it quite hard to put it on one side and be cheerful , while the film crew was here. The real underlying sadness however is that my dearly beloved dog a big friendly Golden retriever in his last days of liver cancer. The vet exclaimed with horror as he felt how much the tumour had grown and promptly gave him huge doses of steroids. He is back to lying down in shallow streams which he loves with a huge doggy grin, playing with his lead as we go out which drives me mad, begging for food -he always, like a lot of golden retrievers, has been greedy and even joins in with the springer spaniel's ball throwing games but he is getting slower very day and we watch with apprehension as while he enjoy life and at the moment he seems a cheerful dog who greets every human with his waving tail , the vet has warned us that it could all change very quickly.
Usaully I would disappear into my studio and start creating colour and I have indeed put some madder & cochineal combination and madder in soak reasy for a dyeing day. However I have had to face up to my accounts which have been reproaching me for a very long time. So with great determination I am spending three days sorting them all out. Thiswas something I have neglected for all sorts of reason and then found as the backlog built up it was difficult to start on it, so now I am paying the price, and so is the longsuffering DH. Bye for now as the dogs want their bedtime biscuits.

Filming the Dye Garden

Photographing the filmers!
The top picture shows Enys with the presenter Russell waiting to be filmed through a sea of golden rod , Enys again waiting - there was a lot of waiting- with my washing line with merino tops dyed with the garden dye plants next to her The third one is of the camera man in my studio with dried garden grown dyes in the foreground, and finally me posing in blue gloves glasses on top of my head as usual waiting to pull something out the dyepot.
The day went well- the garden and Enys were the stars and Enys explained all about the dyes sometimes translating what I said but the focus was really on the plants. S4C is the Welsh language channel and consequentially they cannot have more than a small amount of English in it so I don't appear very much in the film, just pulling stuff out the indigo vat and so on. They were fascinated by my samples of fermented madder and solar dyed madder which I had laid out ready at the back of the studio ( will put up a photo of these ) and we unwrapped a piece of bundled silk which had been wrapped around crushed dye plants for three weeks and left in the sun. The colours are gorgeous so I will take a picture of that today and put it up on the blog too. The funniest thing was the big debate on how to translate that I do a lot of fermentation dyeing and came up between them with a word that apparently is rather like brewing as the formal dictionary translation of fermentation into Welsh would not have been recognised by many viewers. The day was fun how much of it it will make it to the small screen I don't know but they said it will probably be shown about four weeks after the start which is the 4th of June.

Dye Garden in process of being tidied up.

Well here is the film star having had a quick wash and brush up! Patio weeded, bears scrubbed free of bird stuff, grass cut, nettles-well some of them cut down ready for the patch to be cleared for Japanese Polygonum ( but don't worry there are plenty more hidden away in corners!). To the right nearly out of the picture is a glass demijohn full of our own grown madder, rubia Tinctoria, which immediately produced good colour and has mirrors round it to catch the rays of sun. Today the bath got up to 35 degrees C and the colour is easily rivalling some commercial chopped madder roots fermenting in the studio which you can't see as it is behind the camera. Most dye plants are in the general mass of green . Golden rod, solidago canadensis, to the left behind the bears, a tub which you can't really see with black violas and self seeded ground ivy (Nepeta hederacea.), behind that is a big bush of Genista Tinctoria and behind that a staghord sumach ( rhus typhina) tree just coming into leaf. Right at the back is Cow parsley - Anthriscus sylvestris . To the rear and right of the picture you may be able to see DH's burning place. The rest is hidden. or as the ladies bedstraw ( galium verum), only just beginning to sprout. The pond is for the wildlife, although purple loostrife, lythrum salicaria, has self seeded behind it. Yesterday DH and I sat and watched a hedge sparrow who has a nest just above it have a lovely refreshing bath in the water.

Felt Sketchbooks Burton Manor 3rd/4th May 2008

Felt Sketch Books

This workshop was run for the first time at Burton Manor 3rd 4thMay 2008.

This is the blurb which describes the workshop and the photos show some of the resulting work.
"During the workshop students will experiment with a wide variety of different feltmaking techniques to create complex and patterned surfaces in felt with layers of colour and texture, using naturally dyed wool and silk fibres, silk and cotton fabrics and linen and silk threads. These sheets of fine felt will then be stitched into a book. This workshop will be ideal for those wanting to learn felt making as well as those wanting to extend their knowledge of this versatile craft."

Packs for the weekend - I made 14 so there were plenty for the 8 students to choose form.

Students at workUsing part felts and layers of fibres to create

textured and multicoloured effects.

Translating a free form painting using Natural Dye Inks into felt
Detail needle felted into place.
Happy students at the end of two days hard work

Stitching into the surface

Fame for the Dye Garden!

My dye garden is going to feature in a televison production-part of a series on working garden by S4C the Welsh language Televison channel sometime in the summer. Enys who grows the dye plants and I who uses them will feature too! Enys of course is the Welsh speaker in the relationship with me doing the dyeing. We tried to persuade them that it might be better to wait till the dye plants were mature, but they are adamant they want it in May (they are filming on May 22nd) which will challenge the pair of us. They predictably want me to demonstrate woad dyeing with fresh leaves. However I hope to have a few others such as birch, and eucalyptus leaves which gave a good colour about this time last year. S4C are also going to film Enys's garden too as she grows plants for medicinal and traditonal usage.

At the moment I am wondering how they are going to do me dyeing and Enys explaining as she grows and I dye! We are also both feeling totally freaked at getting everything ready in two weeks However at least I put some cotton into my compost heap to compost dye last week which helps in explaining that every part of the garden is used and we have practiced good lines for the nettles-dye, attracts butterflies, can use for spinning , as well as for the bonfire site, (my DH loves having a good burn) which we point out provides me with woodash for wood ash lye. as things stand we cannot find a good excuse for the weeds in the paving cracks on the patio so DH will have to weed., ( I originally said that we would have to weed but DH pointed out that the we was a royal we and it really meant him)

Enys blog on dye plants 19 April 2008

enys said...
Mae Tyfu Lliw yn enw addas iawn i'r 'blog' yma. Yr wyf yn cael llawer o hwyl yn tyfu bob math o flodau i Helen i'w defnyddio. Mae hi yn creu lluniau bendigedig, mae y lliwiau yn hollol naturiol ac felly yn gweithio yn dda iawn yn rhoi lliw credadwy o'r wlad o'm cwmpas.I was just wondering if there was a Welsh person out there using natural dyes.I'm so glad the polygonum has germinated, I get worried when I send seeds.The Woad grows everywhere in my garden, but I always plant some seeds in the greenhouse, and these never do very well - so now I rely on it self seeding (which it does with a vengence).I germinated the Chinese Woad in 3 different ways, bottom heat -very succesful, greenouse covered in bubble wrap very good result but obvious slower, and in an open tray and they are just showing now. The weather has been so dull and cold so everything is very slow, usually by now I am potting on at a frantic rate, as it is I've potted on about 30 Japanese polygonums and I've got what looks like hundreds more. Make sure you let one or more plants set seed to save for next year.I'm going to put most of the Chinese Woad in Helen's garden, to avoid it cross pollinating with my Isatis tinctoria Woad. I've got a another place to put mine a long way from the main garden. Always exciting growing new plants.Enys

Helens' note-Enys meant to post this but put it into a comment box instead so I have posted it for her.
Incidetnally woad does not flourish in my garden. We grow it here from Enys plants but rarely do we find woad self seeding any where in my garden.