Everything is connected…

I’ve been down the ogham rabbithole – still there in fact -, but I am surfacing just a little to share an amused observation. In the course of my “Are ogham letters named for trees?” research I’ve discovered a side tunnel that joins up to my “tell me about dyeing in Ireland” research that I’m…

Dyeing, not Dying, at Battle Colours! (part one – the process)

Alice de la Wode, Gytha Ui Bhanain and I live in a small few mile radius of one another. We have similar problems with juggling time, travel and hobby and home commitments with young adults and almost adults at home. We work on meeting up and doing things very much on the fly, not quite…

If anyone ever tells you pink isn’t period…

..send them to me. There’s no way pink wasn’t period, unless they were calling it something else, like red maybe. This is ordinary wool, linen and muslin cloth all dyed with brazilwood. I used tap water (hard, lots of lime) and was a bit sparing with the chips to water and weight of fibre ratio….

Birch bark result

The birch bark dyeing experiment has been completed, it filled the kitchen with an not unpleasant but very distinctive smell. I thought the color would be pinker given the colour of the dye bath.

Bug bits, roots and leaves

A twinge in my back has become a rather large and inconvenient pain, so tonight’s planned dyeing session instead became a sort of forlorn inventory taking of my newly delivered dyestuff. This is alum, considered an excellent mordant for beginners and just in general. It isn’t too expensive and is generally regarded as the safest…

Birch bark in a bucket

I know what I’m like. When I try something the first time I can be terribly impatient, I can’t resist turning it out to look to see how it’s doing. With that self knowledge I adopt a “make one to throw away” approach – work on a first attempt at something new with materials that…