Young Golden Rod- a surprise

Posted by Helen


Goldenrod in March 2009

Golden rod in flower August 2008

When we were first planting the dye garden I told Enys I wanted Golden Rod. Much against her inclination as a gardener as golden rod spreads fast and can be difficult to control Enys planted golden rod saying "you want golden rod you will have goldenrod- a whole garden of it". Goldenrod as a dye is a fabulous bright light fast yellow and at the very first dye workshop I ever ran someone gave us huge amount of goldenrod which we over dyed in Indigo when it gave a glorious emerald green. So obviously I wanted goldenrod and if I don't have a garden of it the original two plants have spread very considerably and so last week I actually cleared goldenrod which was threatening to choke a dwarf willow and which was looking a bit beleaguered. Enys on a waste not want not principle said to me sternly "are you going to try dyeing with that?" So of course I did as I was told and tried the immature plants for dye. Normally Goldenrod is one of those plants that you dye with when in full flower. The flower heads on their own give the clearest yellow I think but the whole plant gives a golden yellow with perhaps the slightest of green over tones.

Yellow from mature Golden Rod September 2007

I had cleared perhaps a dozen plants about a foot high so I chopped them up very roughly covered with water and heated very slowly and gently for about 12hours. The water was a deep brown to my surprise so I drained off the dye bath and repeated the extraction.
Into the resulting dye bath I put my ubiquitous Teeswater fleece and a 100 g of 18.5micon merino tops which has been in a very weak indigo vat and was dyed a very pale blue with lots of white areas. Both had been mordanted in 8 % alum 7% Cream of tartar.
The Teeswater took the colour first turning a soft pinky purple while the merino looked a rather unpromising grey. After 6 hours or so the merino began to look a greyish purple. Gingerly I added a drop of ammonia to see whether it would brighten the colours and the whole bath went a deep green. This change is rather reminiscent of the colour from elderberries which change from purple to green (and back again) with a pH change.
The resulting colour has proved very difficult to photograph looking blue or grey or even purple against different background.

To my eye it looks a dark turquoise, my husband ( red green deficient in his vision) says to him it looks green. Looking at the merino across the garden it look a dark grey with a green tinge. The odd thing is in all the photos I have taken I cannot get one that looks green. Whatever the colour is it is somewhat a surprise to get it from a plant

Teeswater looking purple against my red gold broom All the photos are of the same merino and Teeswater curls

which later will give bright yellow. I had expected pale or non existent yellow

The chemicals in the plant must change significantly as the plant matures.But why?

second year woad blues

Posted by Helen
I am often asked if second year woad gives blue and although I have done it in the past I thought it would be nice to have evidence!
A few days ago I cut about four second year plants of Isatis Tinctoria down to stop them flowering as I don't want them to cross pollinate with Chinese woad Isatis Indigotica which is in full flower.
As always I followed Jill Goodwin recipe from the Dyers Manual( Published by Batsford) so I ripped the leaves up and poured boiling water over them sufficient to cover the leaves , left them for about half and hour and then squeezed the leaves out and removed them leaving a brown liquid darker than the normal sherry colour I have got from first year leaves. I added about a 100ml of washing soda solution, {sodium carbonate) made by mixing 4 tablespoons of washing soda to 1 litre of water, which turned the liquid a sort of browny/green colour, beat thoroughly to oxygenate the water and precipitate the indigotin. Normally the froth turns blue but it did not show much sign of the blue froth this time suggesting that indogitin levels might be low. I added 1 teaspoon of thiourea dioxide and left for a further 20 minutes. The little vat was difficult to read as it was bright green and when I dyed fibres they went green, this was a yellow colour in the dye bath which washed off easily revealing the blue underneath. I added in the fibres shown and got as you can see pale blue on silk, on a textured yarn and quite a reasonable blue on the teeswater. I put the squeezed out leaves into a slow cooker and left overnight on the keep warm facility before adding teeswater curls and getting the resulting golden tan with a pinkish tinge.
So there you are you can get blue from second year woad leaves before they flower but the amount of blue you can get may be low.
Welcome to the new followers Manya , Danielle and Joybilee farm

From Enys

Posted by Enys
Finally got the hang of writing in a blog. Should have been doing it winter when I actually had more time. Potted on 50+ of Chinese Woad last night. I can only work in the greenhouse early morning or in the evening - otherwise I'd get so hot Peter might come back and find I'd dissolved into a puddle of something or other!! This morning was reasonably cool so I got on with the Coreopsis and Baptisia australis.My evenings and dear husbands are spent watering in the greenhouse and watering the plants being hardened off outside - I'm sure they multiply during the night. Oh, and the rabbits have found my plants and are beginning their great pruning session so now I'm putting them on a frame out of their reach, trouble is I don't have enough of these frames. Have to get back to the drawing board.
I guess Helen has told you we'll be at Wonder Wool, I ll have some of my plants, so look me up if you are there.
Back to the plants.

Wonderwool Wales 25th-26th April at the Royal Welsh Showground

Posted by Helen

We,that is Enys and I are setting off to Wonderwool tomorrow.
If you are coming come and see us we shall be at N4. If you are a blog follower tell us and we will give you a blog follower discount of 10% . (Except for the special offers -such as 6x50g 0f merino for £20.00 as these are already discounted).

Natural Fibres Naturally Dyed
Kits
Natural Dye Inks
Dye Books
Dye Plants
Ceramic and Pottery Buttons

ps that is a back view of Enys at Woolfest !

These photos are of the Woolfest as the stall at Wonderwool last year was not too good. The reason for this is each stall is made up of a shell which has dirty white walls ( it is rather like being inside shoebox which is open to the top and at one end)! It was suggested to us by the organisers that you could hang meat hooks over the shell and then hang a broomstick from that. Sadly my stainless steel butchers hooks were too small, so it was a disaster as we had no way of covering the dirty white walls. This time however I am setting off sorted thanks to Debbie Bamford's John and DH and I expect the stall to look good, (or at least better). Furthermore I have loads more dyed merino than last year, indeed than ever before so should create a big splash of colour.



.

From Enys
Just been potting on yet more seedlings, and looking at the ones I potted up last week, and thinking by this time next week they'll need to be put in bigger pots!! Trouble is I can't throw any plant away, Peter (husband) manages to be quite heartless and discards any of his plants that he thinks don't maker the grade. My problem is - all my plants are really strong so I can't bear to discard any, must try and stop anthropormorphising them (how's that for a big word) and talking to them, or one day men in white coats will take ma away!!
Enough for now.

Basket and Buttons

Posted by Helen
Today was Clwyd Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers friendship day. It was a lovely day, very warm and friendly with an extremely nice lunch so it was rather sad there were not as many visitors as was hoped for especially so as there were a number of good stalls (including mine). Just looking at the stalls made me realise what a wealth of local talent there is: Debbie Bamford of the Mulberry Dyer and her partner John (Debbie is currently running the Dyeing the Reds workshop on the Online Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers), Andy of Blue faced Leicester.com, who sells lovely yummy fibres many of which are British hooray, Norweft which is a local minimill specialising in alpacas, as well as stalls selling handmade ceramic buttons, baskets and jewellery.

This is what I bought! :) A basket from Chris Jordan to display my buttons and ..... more ceramic buttons by Lynn Blanchard ... which I can't resist! (and also one of John's lovely big niddy noddy's) Although the visitors and members were select they were discerning buyers and bought a lot as well as buying all the plants, which Enys had let me have, within ten minutes of my arrival.

Plants

From Enys
I've obviously got time on my hands, ot maybe I just need a break from potting on seedlings. I potted on what seemed like thousands yesterday, it was actually about 150, Anthemis tinctoria and Persicaria tinctoria. I'm now looking at the Chinese woad, got two more tray to pot on. At least it doesn't matter if it rains, I just adore being in the greenhouse. I could quite cheerfully move in there, nice and quiet, except when my almost 4 year old grandson comes with me, he manages to make himself absolutely filthy, but at least making mud is a quiet occupation! He is actually very helpful, he fills up the pots for meand can usually manage about 20 before boredom sets in!! All the plants that are now large enough are being taken outside to be hardened off, bit of a drag having to take them in and out for a few days before being able to leave them out permenantly. My Madder has at last made an effort and I now have a few to pot on to the next stage, really exciting - that makes me sound so sad!!
Dog and I are now going out to take in plants - it never stops.
Enys